When I took over the Simanjiro mission, one of my goals was to help our catechists who regularly travel very bad roads to reach the faithful at all of our 28 outstations scattered over a 62-mile radius. This has been one of the biggest challenges to evangelization. Thanks to you, now 17 out of 22 catechists have brand new motorcycles.

I would like, on behalf of all the entire Simanjiro mission community and on my own behalf, to thank you all who have been helping us take the Gospel to the interior and remote places. You have made my ministry very fulfilling and have transformed the lives of many people. May our Good Lord continue to bless you. 

When  I received  my mission assignment  to Colombia, I wondered  how I would be able to learn  and become fluent in Spanish. My  friends and family members asked me  why I chose Colombia and not another  country. To their worries, I replied, “People  are living there; I can live there too.” And it  is true; I have encountered life in Cali, Colombia,  and accept the challenges and risks of working here.

Together with [the lay missionaries] and so many other people,  I continue to encounter life in Cali. We thank God for his goodness to us!

Every day in the southern Philippine metropolis of Cebu City, as many as ten thousand young women are forced to sell their bodies. Priests, sisters, and our own Brother Paul Bongcaras are there working to help them escape from that life. 

“Anyone who wrinkles his nose at what I am doing should just come with me once when I make my nightly rounds and see for himself how things are,” he says. “We can’t close our eyes to reality. Just because the rest of society doesn’t want to have anything to do with them, it’s important that we accept those girls as they are.” Sometimes it is harder to ask for permission than for forgiveness.

That is Bro. Paul’s motto of life. Already in the early 1970s, the Divine Word Missionary had people talking about him as, in addition to his studies in psychology at the University of San Carlos, he began his social work in the slums and red-light districts of Cebu — without the permission of his superiors. “In the eyes of our provincial superior at the time, I was a rebel,” Bro. Paul remembers. “He was afraid that by doing what I was doing, I would be endangering both my health and my vocation as a religious Brother.”