The Lay Partners group of the SVD Australia Province joined forces with lay partner groups from around the world recently to take part in a ‘Prayer Bridge’ to mark World Day of the Poor.

The worldwide prayer initiative was an idea conceived by the lay partners of the SVD in Germany and embraced by lay partners and SVD members in a range of countries.

“Joy is all around. I just have to be open to it,” says Fr Truong Thong Le SVD, as he takes up his first missionary assignment in Thailand.

Fr Truong, who was born in Vietnam and raised in the United States, has recently arrived back in Thailand as a fully-fledged SVD missionary priest, after spending time there as a student as part of the SVD’s Overseas Training Program (OTP).

After 10 years as a  missionary in Kenya, Fr Mariusz Kubista SVD has arrived in Myanmar, saying he is keen to get to know the people and help establish the AUS Province’s  new mission in the south-east Asian nation.

“My hope personally is to fulfil the will of God,” he says. “But for the mission started here, I would say my hope is to reach out to people in their local language, both in the written and spoken form.”

Growing up in Madagascar in a community that could only celebrate Mass once every three months because of a shortage of priests, Andrianihantana Francois d’Assise felt the initial stirrings of a call to the priesthood.

It wasn’t until high school, when he joined a school holiday missionary activity conducted by a Divine Word Missionary (SVD) priest that he began to consider the idea of becoming a missionary priest.

Final preparations are underway for the SVD General Chapter to be held at Nemi, outside Rome next month, with Divine Word Missionaries from all around the world, including the AUS Province, set to take part in the important gathering, held once every three years.

And for the first time there will be a significant presence of lay partners at the Chapter, highlighting the Society’s growing formal relationship with its lay collaborators.

January has been a big month of prayer and thanksgiving at Divine Word Missionary communities throughout the AUS Province with the celebration of not one but two SVD saints’ feast days.

Both of the SVD saints, St Arnold Janssen and St Joseph Freinademetz, have their feast days in January, prompting SVD and SSpS communities to come together for special Eucharistic Celebrations and gatherings.

The SVD in Myanmar joined the local parish of Hmawbi to host hundreds of people from surrounding areas in their property when Pope Francis came to town recently.

The house, which is still undergoing renovation, was at a stage where tiling had been completed and it was fit and habitable for the guests.

When the Superior-General of the Divine Word Missionaries, Fr Heinz Kuluke, visited the SVD AUS Province recently, he had one key message for both confreres and partners in mission: “Thank you”.

“I am here to thank you,” he said. “I am always touched by the dedication of our missionaries and the many mission partners who support us in so many different ways.”

The SVD AUS Province’s new mission in Myanmar is full of both wonderful potential and challenge, says Mission Secretary, Fr Truc Quoc Phan SVD.

Fr Truc has recently returned from Myanmar where, together with Fr John Hung Le SVD, he has been preparing the property for the first missionaries to take up residence in sometime in the first half of next year.

The Superior General of the Divine Word Missionaries, Fr Heinz Kuluke, is visiting the AUS Province to spend time with the SVD missionaries here, to learn about their ministries and encourage them in their work.

Fr Heinz, who is based at the SVD headquarters in Rome, will visit Melbourne, Central Australia, Sydney, Brisbane and New Zealand. He has previously visited Thailand which is also part of the AUS Province.