7h 30 Jan 13th 2013, the mission group headed to a missionary church belong to St. Paul Church in Can Tho. The distance was not very far, just about 15 km. However, everyone was excited to go and meet with parishioners at the missionary church since this was a very special location to spread the Good News.
According to the vicar priest, up to 95 percent of parishioners here were converts to the Catholic Church. However, the parishioners’ morality and devotion to the Church left our group, especially Father Martino Nguyen Ba Thong and young adult volunteers from US, in deep appreciation and respect. In order to reach the missionary church, especially for this Sunday Mass and Father Martino’s lecture, many parishioners had to leave home since 4:00 am.
To return the generosity of the parishioners here, Father Martino gave a lecture titled “People Who Pass Our Lives”. Parishioners here were very excited and paid close attention to Father lecture. Through the lecture, Father invited people to open their hearts to welcome neighbors and strangers into their lives and share what they had to less fortunate brothers and sisters. This was also fitting very well with the attitude of charity, love and generosity which the vicar priest encouraged the parishioners to exercise.
Ms Thao, a young adult volunteer from US shared her thought when she witnessed the silence and brave sacrifice of the vicar priest, sisters and all the volunteers here. Thao said: “ Although I am very young and healthy, I make shortcuts with God for many times when forgetting to go to masses. However, despite long distance, bad road conditions and lack of transportation, elders, disabled people and youths here attended masses faithfully and devotedly by their full engagement in each prayer and song. This is the model for Vietnamese American youths to learn from in their religious practice.”
After saying farewell to the parishioners at missionary church, the mission group headed toward St. Paul Church to prepare for Father Martino’s next lecture in the evening.
Because this was the second time Father Martino gave lectures at the church, the auditorium was packed with people. Everyone was very excited to listen to the new lecture “Love Until Your Heart Stop”.
Today was a very special day for Father Martino – His 37th birthday. Everyone in the community sang happy birthday song for him. On behalf of all the fans of Father Martino, Singer Hien Thuc gave all the best wishes to him. We prayed to God and Saint Martino always protect and journey with Father’s life. Please grant him soul peace, good health so that father can continue God’s mission for his life.
- Phạm Sỹ
Translated by Tu Nguyen. You can read the original version in Vietnamese, entitle "Hành trình Cần Thơ (Ngày 1) - Ngày của những điều kỳ diệu"
=================================================== Every year, Father Martino leads many mission trips entitled "Lend A Hand" - One of them is a trip beginning in January 2013! Father Martino continuously repeat the purpose of the mission: “When you are on the mission with me – you don’t do a lot!! I want you to open yourselves, watch, listen, see and learn! The DOINGS begin when you return to the US!” so you can talk about it and do with passion to be the VOICE and the HAND of these children being sold/forced into sex slavery! OBV --- Hằng năm, Cha Nguyễn Bá Thông dẫn đầu nhiều chuyến hành trình với sứ mạng "Chung một bàn tay" - Một trong số đó là chuyến hành trình vào tháng 1 năm 2013. Cha Thông luôn lặp đi lặp lại một điều: "Khi tham gia hành trình sứ mạng cùng Cha - các con đừng làm gì nhiều! Cha muốn chính các con hãy nhìn - nghe - chứng kiến - và học hỏi! Việc "LÀM" hãy bắt đầu khi các con trở về đất nước! Khi đó, hãy nói và làm với cả tâm huyết để trở thành TIẾNG NÓI và BÀN TAY cho các trẻ em bị bán/bị bắt ép làm nô lệ tình dục!" Một Thân Hình
Singer Nhu Loan
