With my time as Provincial drawing to a close at the end of this year, and still plenty of things to cross off the ‘to-do’ list, there hasn’t been much time for reflection on these past six years.

But as I write this column, it is a chance to take a few moments and consider what God has done in our Province and to give thanks for blessings received.

It’s marvellous the power that words can have to focus our attention and efforts, especially when they are distilled down into a motto.

This has certainly been the case for me since learning of the new motto for the Society of the Divine Word: ‘Faithful to the Word, One with the People’.

The Divine Word Missionaries have launched a special appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Idai and Cyclone Kenneth, which hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi recently, to get back onto their feet and rebuild their lives.

The SVD AUS Province is taking part in the appeal and welcomes any donations which could assist in the recovery effort.

The chaplaincy relationship between the Divine Word Missionaries and Melbourne’s Indonesian Catholic community recently notched up its 25th anniversary, with the links between the two having grown strongly over the decades.

Fr Frank Gerry SVD was the first Divine Word Missionary assigned as chaplain to the Indonesian community in Melbourne during his time as Rector of Dorish Maru College from 1993-1999.

The Divine Word Missionaries are relaunching their Dei Verbum Biblical Course for those engaged in Biblical ministry, and three missionaries from the AUS Province will be among those taking part in the program to be held in Nemi, Italy, later this year.

Province Biblical Coordinator, Fr Elmer Ibarra SVD, will be accompanied by Fr Mariusz Kubista SVD and Fr Tuyen Nguyen SVD who have recently taken up their assignments in the new Myanmar mission, where their work is focused on Bible ministry.

Lunar New Year is a time of celebration for many across Asia and the Divine Word Missionaries in Bangkok helped Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand to mark the occasion with prayer and fellowship.

Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD says there are tens of thousands of Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand, but many of them return to Vietnam to celebrate Lunar New Year because it is close and easy to do so.

The SVD AUS Province is heading into a year of transition in 2019 with the election of the new Provincial and Provincial Council.

Fr Henry Adler SVD has served his two terms as Provincial and the process will soon get underway to elect his successor.

Divine Word Missionary communities throughout the AUS Province and the world have had much to celebrate in January, with the commemoration of two SVD saints – St Arnold Janssen and St Joseph Freinademetz.

St Arnold’s feast day was on January 15, the date of his death in 1909 in Steyl, Holland. He was the founder of the Divine Word Missionaries, as well as two orders of Religious Women, the Servant Sisters of the Holy Spirit and the Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration.

The Lay Partners group of the SVD Australia Province joined forces with lay partner groups from around the world recently to take part in a ‘Prayer Bridge’ to mark World Day of the Poor.

The worldwide prayer initiative was an idea conceived by the lay partners of the SVD in Germany and embraced by lay partners and SVD members in a range of countries.

“Joy is all around. I just have to be open to it,” says Fr Truong Thong Le SVD, as he takes up his first missionary assignment in Thailand.

Fr Truong, who was born in Vietnam and raised in the United States, has recently arrived back in Thailand as a fully-fledged SVD missionary priest, after spending time there as a student as part of the SVD’s Overseas Training Program (OTP).