After 15 years of missionary life in Brazil, including a number of years living with the people of the Amazon River, Fr Manh Le SVD says he is pleased to be back in Australia, even though life is taking a bit of getting used to. 

“I feel a bit like a fish out of water,” he laughs. “It’s a big adjustment. But it’s good to be back and I’m looking forward to making a contribution here.”

Fr Manh is currently on a period of home leave with his family in Brisbane. They settled there after fleeing Communist Vietnam.

“I was born in Vietnam in 1971, which was in the middle of the Vietnam War,” he says.

After the war, Manh and his family tried to escape from Communist Vietnam a few times, but couldn’t make it, and he was captured by the police. Eventually four of his eight siblings did escape on three different occasions and made it to Brisbane as refugees, where the rest of the family was later able to join them under the Family Reunion visa program.

“It took us 15 years to all get back together again,” he says. “And our gratitude is intense, because not many families were able to do this. There are still many families who are separated.”

Manh says that when he arrived in Brisbane, he set about learning the language and enjoying the freedom, including chasing girls.

However, when he started working with the youth at St Mark’s Parish, Inala, he began to feel the call of a religious vocation.

“At that stage, I didn’t know any SVDs,” he says. “So I almost joined the Passionists, and I also looked at other religious congregations, and even the Diocesan priesthood. But then a friend told me about the SVDs and they sounded interesting, so he arranged for me to meet Fr Liam Horsfall SVD at Hamilton Parish.”

That meeting proved to be the turning point for Manh and he made inquiries about joining the SVD Novitiate at Marsfield.

“I fell in love with the SVD,” he says. “I found it very international and very welcoming.”

After completing his formation in Melbourne, Manh took his final vows and was ordained a priest in 2004. His first assignment was to Brazil, where he had previously spent a year as part of the Overseas Training Program.

“I had fallen in love with Brazil during my OTP,” he says. “And I had a dream of being a missionary up the Amazon. It took me 10 years to get there, but eventually I did.”

Fr Manh spent the first five years of his life in Brazil working in formation at the Novitiate, which was located in the countryside outside of San Paulo City.

“I didn’t expect to be placed into Formation as my first assignment, but I was, so I did my best,” he says.

“After that, I was Parish Priest for three years in that same area of the countryside, which is a very poor area.

“But then, eventually, my dream came true and they sent me up the Amazon, where for four or five years I lived on the river.

“That was a big change, a shock. You basically leave the modern world behind. There’s no water, no electricity, no phones.”

Fr Manh says he would move up and down the river, visiting different communities along the way.

“It was beautiful, but also very challenging,” he says. “There is no accommodation, so I lived with the people, in their homes. And there was no bedding, so I travelled with my hammock and my mosquito net.

“I would say Mass, spend time with them in their homes, and then move on the next day. It was also very seasonal. Access was easier during the rainy season, even though it was very wet and hot.”

Fr Manh says the people of the Amazon were so grateful for the missionaries who came to them.

“They are very much Catholic, and unlike in the South American cities, the big evangelical churches haven’t reached up there, so the people are very proud to be Catholic and very grateful that the Church still goes to these places and cares for the poor and the neglected. 

“For much of the year they are very independent because they only see a priest about three times a year, so they hold their own liturgies and get together for Bible sharing, but when missionaries arrive they are very happy to celebrate Mass in the little chapel that each village has.”

Despite going through a period of adjustment now that he’s back in the AUS Province, Fr Manh says he’s looking forward to the challenges ahead.

“It’s good to be back, and I see the need here,” he says. “I hope I can help both older people, especially migrants, as well as young people. The young people need younger priests who can understand them.”

Looking back on his time in the Amazon, Fr Manh says that three words remained always in his heart and mind – hope, humility, and humour.

“Hope kept me and my family going during the bad times in Vietnam and it kept me going in the Amazon. And without being humble, you can’t do anything. I learnt a lot about being humble from the people I lived with on the river. Finally, you have to laugh at everything! Laughing makes everything better.”