A recent visit to Papua New Guinea to give presentations to seminarians on ‘ecological conscience’ and social media, was an energising experience for Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD.

Fr Anthony is a Divine Word Missionary of the Australia Province, based in Bangkok and is Executive Director of the Asian Research Centre for Religion and Social Communication.

Fr Michael Nguyen SVD who has been teaching at the Good Shepherd Seminary in the Archdiocese of Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea this year, has been appointed Dean of Studies for the next academic year, and says he’s enjoying the “vibrant tapestry” of PNG, a place he now calls home.

Fr Michael, originally from Vietnam, is a member of the SVD Australia Province, working in Mount Hagen Archdiocese at the request of Bishop Douglas Young SVD.

Fr Anton Bulla SVD has been remembered as a faith-filled and joy-filled person, a committed priest and missionary, both during his years in Papua New Guinea and later in his ministry of healing through the marriage tribunal in Sydney.

Fr Anton died at Marsfield on July 11, just shy of his 89^th birthday. His requiem Mass was held in the St Arnold Janssen Chapel and was attended by confreres, friends and fellow members of the canon law community of which he had been an active member. Members of his family overseas were able to watch by video.

The Divine Word Missionaries and Holy Spirit Sisters in Papua New Guinea are hoping to gain fundraising support to help expand a university scholarship scheme, which has allowed about 80 students in the last four years to gain a university education.

Fr Philip Gibbs SVD from Divine Word University in Madang, PNG, was in Australia this month and shared the story of the Arnoldus Family Scholarships.

The Divine Word Missionaries this month celebrated 125 years in Papua New Guinea with a range of celebrations, giving thanks to God for all the blessings bestowed on the mission, the people, and the missionaries themselves.

SVD Superior-General, Fr Paul Budi Kleden, was special guest at the celebrations, having made it all the way from Rome, despite the COVID-related difficulties in international travel.

Vietnamese SVD student Joseph Hoang Quoc Phan set off for Papua New Guinea as part of the Overseas Training Program wishing to gain experience “in a real mission area”, and, thanks to COVID-19 border restrictions, he got even more mission experience than he bargained for.

Joseph’s OTP training has reached its conclusion, but has been extended because of the pandemic-related international travel restrictions.

The Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters are celebrating 75 years of their presence in Brisbane this year, though the planned celebrations on the anniversary day, March 28, had to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.T

Eighteen Holy Spirit Sisters, who were survivors of the Japanese prison camps and death ships in Papua New Guinea during World War II, arrived in Brisbane in May 1944, joining five others who had come earlier, after trekking for months across the mountains and valleys of PNG. Fifty-four of their Sisters had died tragically during the War.

Celebrating Mission Day at Dorish Maru College this month helped me to reflect again on the importance of the concept of 'Mission in Reverse'. Mission for me is never a 'one way street' but rather it flows in both directions at once.

The community at Dorish Maru College in Box Hill, Melbourne, celebrated our annual Mission Day on Saturday, October 5.

When Fr Kazimierz Niezgoda SVD left Poland as a young man to be a missionary in Papua New Guinea he figured he would stay there his whole life, and now, 51 years after he arrived, he still has no plans to leave.

“I was committed,” he says. “I knew I would stay.”

At 83  years of age, and recently given the all-clear by Sydney specialists after treatment for Leukaemia, Archbishop William Kurtz SVD has headed back to Papua New Guinea to continue his ministry of providing formation for catechists and “helping out” wherever he can.

Archbishop Kurtz, who retired as the Archbishop of Madang in 2010, says he could have returned home to Poland when he retired at 76, but after more than 50 years in PNG, he’d come to love the place and the people, and he wasn’t sure he could cope with the European winters.