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: In November 2015, Julia Corcoran spent a week with Columban lay missionaries from Chile and the Philippines who are working in Britain. The following is her account as told to Columban Fr. Denis Carter.
If I were to describe my twelve years ministering to prostitutes, I would have to say I felt truly powerless on the one hand and deeply aware of God’s presence on the other. God’s love and compassion seemed very much alive in that dark and painfilled world.
Noh Hyein, better known as Anna (pronounced En-na), a teacher by profession, came to the Philippines in April 2011 with three other Korean women. After a year of studies in Tagalog and English, she was assigned to St. Peter Parish in the Diocese of Novaliches.
My name is Olajoke Ajikolu, and I am from Nigeria. I have five brothers and a sister, and life seemed to be pretty hard for us. I stopped going to school at the age of 16 as the family could not afford the school fees for me.
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.
It has been nine years since I started working as a personal counsellor in a Boy’s Secondary School in Dublin, Ireland, and also nine years since I started working in The Capuchin Day Center for Homeless People in Dublin. As regards to the school I can see a great improvement over the years.
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.