When Indonesian-born Fr Boni Buahendri SVD was assigned to Australia as a missionary priest, he dreamed of working with indigenous people in a remote location. Instead, he found himself first in parish ministry and now in formation of young missionaries, and he says he could not be happier.

“I love working with these young people,” he says. “In our society today, only a few people want to become missionary brothers and priests, so to see these young people so enthusiastic to become missionaries makes my day.

“It tells me that God is still there. The Holy Spirit is still at work. God still calls.”

Fr Boni was born in Flores, a predominantly Catholic Indonesian island, and says he was inspired to become a missionary priest by his parish priest, who was a Divine Word Missionary (SVD).

“As a little boy I was inspired by the way he ministered to us and was with the people and the way he talked to them, and the joy he had in proclaiming the gospel. I thought, ‘I’d like to be like that man’,” he says.

After finishing high school in the minor seminary boarding school, Boni applied to join the Divine Word Missionaries, and was accepted.

He undertook his studies in Philosophy and Theology in Flores, made his vows in 1997, and was ordained a priest in 1998, giving Mexico, North America and Australia as his three choices for missionary assignment.

“I gave those choices, thinking I would like to walk with marginalised people,” he says.

“The Superior General appointed me to Australia and I was hoping to work with the Aboriginal people here. Instead, I ended up working in very Anglo-Australian parish, at Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast.

“That’s the thing about being a missionary. You take your assignment according to the need of the Province. So I didn’t get what I wanted, but I was happy.”

Fr Boni arrived in Australia in 1999, and before taking up his placement at Our Lady Star of the Sea, Terrigal, he studied English for a year.

“In the end, I really loved my first parish at Terrigal,” he says. “I loved the place, the people, the ministry and I felt really accepted by the parish priest and the people.

“I was there for three years and when I was asked to move on, it broke my heart. But it taught me more about being a missionary. The beauty of being a missionary is that when you start to love the people, love the ministry, you have to move on to where there is a greater need.”

Fr Boni’s next placement was at Mary Mother of the Church parish at Macquarie Fields in Wollongong Diocese, a very multicultural, working class parish.

“I loved it there too, even though there were challenges. I was there in 2006 during the big riot in Macquarie Fields.

“But in 2007 I was asked to move to Melbourne for two years further study to prepare myself for working in formation for the SVD Province. I really loved working in the parish, but the Province asked me to do this work in formation, so you just have to keep your memories and move on. It’s about not forming attachments and being free to move on to where you are needed.”

Fr Boni is now in his second term as Director of Formation for the SVD AUS Province and says his own ministry in Australia has helped prepare him for his work with young missionaries here.

“I’ve had some hard experiences,” he says. “I’m far away from home, I’ve been homesick, I have English as a second language, the way of living is so different from my home. There is a real challenge of cross-cultural living and ministry.

“I’ve come to learn that I’m always Indonesian, but I have to cross over to the other culture I’m in and respect that culture. I can’t become Australian, but the more I understand my identity as an Indonesian, the more I can respect the Australian culture.”

Fr Boni says he has found the Australian community to be really welcoming and he endeavours to return that open relationship.

He says that whereas in the past, missionaries were sent to countries to proclaim the Gospel to those who had not heard it before, nowadays, mission is understood to be more about listening.

“Being a missionary is not so much about proclaiming the Kingdom of God, but about listening the Kingdom of God,” he says.

“It’s not about bringing Jesus to the Australian people. Jesus was already here before I arrived. But it’s about getting to know Jesus more and more through the culture of Australia and through listening to the mystery of God that is here.”

Fr Boni’s work in the formation of young missionaries has a four-pronged focus. The first is academic formation, which involves the students completing a Bachelor of Theology and Master of Theological Studies at Yarra Theological Union. The second is spiritualty, where the students develop their spiritual life of shared Mass, prayer and understanding of the Divine Word Missionary charism. Third is community formation, involving a focus on living in the multicultural religious community that is the Society of the Divine Word. The formation house of 19 people features 12 different nationalities. And finally, there is a focus on pastoral work, where students are required to do some non-parish based ministry in nursing homes, hospitals, prison, homeless centres and the seafarers’ mission.

“In all of this, we are engaged very much in working with marginalised and the poor, because they are training to become missionaries and they could be appointed to go anywhere in the world,” he says.

Twice a month the young men come together with a Ministry Supervisor who helps them digest their experience.

“For example, in prison, it is not uncommon to have a racist experience, where prisoners might call out to them in racist terms, so their ministry supervisor helps them to process that and to ask where is God in that situation. This is necessary, because of course when something like that happens we feel offended, we feel pain, so we are helped to work our way through that and to look for God in the situation.

“Because we are very much a multicultural missionary congregation we focus a lot on training our new missionaries to live in a multicultural society, with all of the issues that go with that. Our formation helps them to have the capacity to live cross-culturally.”

As well as living cross-culturally, Fr Boni says SVD formation gives young missionaries an ability to proclaim the positive aspects of living in harmony with people of different religions and living in dialogue with other religions.
Technology also features in the formation schedule, with students being urged to make good use of technology, not just for their own personal entertainment, but as tools for mission.

Fr Boni says that when he sees his students taking final vows or being ordained to the priesthood, he often feels emotional.

“When the bishop lays his hands on them at ordination, or when they are in mission somewhere and they send me their news and I can see that they are happy being missionaries, I do sometimes get emotional in my heart,” he says.

“I imagine it feels a little bit like how a mother or father might feel when one of their children gets married. To see this fresh energy for God’s mission in our young people makes me believe that God is still at work in our Church and in our society.”

PHOTO: Above, Fr Boni is pictured, far left, at the diaconate ordination of three of his students earlier this year.