Below are stories from past issues of Columban Mission magazine. The Columban Fathers publish Columban Mission magazine eight times a year. Subscriptions are available for just $15 per year. Sign up to receive our next issue. Read more about Columban Mission magazine.
Editor’s Note: On Monday, November, 23, 2015, Columban Fr. YoungIn Kim celebrated the Feast Day of St. Columban in Cuzco, Peru. He described the experience in the article below.
In 2007 my father talked to me about the possibility of going overseas as a lay missionary. When I began to attend, with 20 others, the orientation program in Suva I had no idea what being a missionary might be about.
My name is Nilton Iman, and I am a priest of the Diocese of Chimbote, a land blessed with the blood of the first martyrs of my country, Peru.
Shusaku Endo, a Japanese novelist, died in 1996–almost 20 years ago. In Japan he is still featured regularly in television programs, magazine articles and exhibitions. Every bookstore still has an Endo section.
My name is Teakare Betero, age 28, and I have been with the Columbans for five years now. At the moment I am studying at the Pacific Regional Seminary. This seminary is the only place for theological study for the priesthood in Oceania (South Pacific).
You might call me a slow learner. I am 84 years old, and about 40 years ago a colleague recommended a book called “The Forgotten Spirit.” The title seemed only mildly interesting to me. I admit that at the time the Holy Spirit did not occupy the place of honor in my spirituality.
Tears flowed down the cheeks of Yudi’s face as he listened to the voice of his mother speaking through my cellular phone while he laid on his ICU (Intensive Care Unit) bed fighting for his life.
On September 6, 2015, I celebrated Mass for the last time in prison. For the past 22 years I have been working as a prison chaplain in Western Australian jails.
The Thar Parkar Desert is situated in the southeast of Pakistan in Sindh province. It covers an area of 22,000 square kilometers with an estimated population of 1.5 million people and is one of the most densely populated deserts of the world.
I got off the minibus at the last stop on the hillside in Huaycan, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. The road ended here so I walked on the unpaved sandy track up the hill, past the shacks that seemed to sprout on the bare slopes. Sand, dust, dirt. Not a blade of grass. Not a flower.
The Columbans are a society of missionaries, including priests and lay people, who minister to people of various cultures as a way of witnessing to the universal love of God.