Vietnamese SVD student Joseph Hoang Quoc Phan set off for Papua New Guinea as part of the Overseas Training Program wishing to gain experience “in a real mission area”, and, thanks to COVID-19 border restrictions, he got even more mission experience than he bargained for.

Joseph’s OTP training has reached its conclusion, but has been extended because of the pandemic-related international travel restrictions.

He says he was attracted to religious life from a young age and credits a prayer that his mother taught him as a young boy: “May my parents have good health to raise and educate us to be your disciples, O God”.

“That simple prayer was deeply imprinted on my soul as a living ideal,” he says.

As a child and teenager he was an altar server in his local parish and then after he finished school he joined the parish choir.

“After high school, the flame of God’s call started burning strongly in me,” he says. “The support of my family  helped me keep going on the path of serving others.”

Joseph’s sister, a nun, provided him with information about the SVD and in his second year of university he joined the Divine Word Missionaries, while also finishing his degree in Sociology and Community Service.

After his postulancy, Joseph continued to the novitiate and completed his studies in Philosophy before signing up for the Overseas Training Program, which provides young missionaries with experience in living and serving interculturally in SVD communities.

He says his experience as a missionary in PNG has had a big impact on him.

“Through this mission, I deeply acknowledge the effort of the former foreign missionaries in the early time to bring the Catholic faith into Vietnam,” he says.

“Besides spending time studying the new language, culture, and mission skills, I also served at parishes which are run by SVD missionaries.

“In particular, I was assigned to work with the youth, the altar servers in Kunjingini every Saturday. We spent time praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy after Mass and doing other activities. I also went out to farther mission places with the pastor to celebrate Sunday Mass for those who could not come to the parish.”

Joseph says that every missionary faces certain difficulties in terms of language, culture, food and lifestyle, but PNG has added challenges, including difficulty in transportation, disease and the shortage of goods, medicine and nursing equipment.

Joseph was also robbed at gun and knife-point when he first arrived in PNG.

“I was a little bit nervous at that time,” he says. “Being robbed in PNG is normal. Practicing simplicity in daily life, I got over those trials by my effort and by my acceptance of whatever I have or receive from the congregation.”

After serving for about two years as a missionary outside his homeland, Joseph will return to Vietnam when COVID restrictions allow to continue his study of Theology.

“Nowadays, the number of the youth involved in the act of sowing the seeds of the Good News is decreasing, while the needs of the harvest of evangelisation and re-evangelisation is immense,” he says.

“I myself, resolvedly hold to the ideal of dedication for the mission of evangelisation of the SVD and of the Church.”