austraLasia
1503
When PNG's first
Cooperator unit says it is 'recruiting' you'd better believe
it!
(Last of the 'toward #1500' entries. Winner
to be announced this weekend...appropriate for 'annunciation'
weekend!)
PORT MORESBY: 25th March 2006 -- PNG's first
Cooperator Unit, now well established since its tentative beginnings in 1998, is
out recruiting, and has 15 new candidates who have begun their first
formation. PNG's first Cooperator Unit is possibly a unique unit in the
ASC world - until now it has been entirely made up of
military men and their wives, is located at Murray Barracks in the NCD and has a Lt. Colonel as its Coordinator.
'Recruiting' for the 'unit' is second-nature for a group like this! The
members have long learned, however, to see their training for what it has to
offer, and to adapt it when their Salesian training suggests otherwise.
Fr. Alfred Maravilla, who was at that time the Rector of the Don Bosco Tech in
Gabutu, gently guided them through those first trials, and one of them, writing
some time back for the Salesian Bulletin, acknowledged the situation when he
said: "Perhaps I should begin by sharing what it was like NOT to be a Salesian
Cooperator" and then went on to say that "as a military person it is like going
from one extreme to the opposite. I used discipline my children as if they
were servicemen....the result was always negative. My search for a better
way to raise my children landed me at the feet of St. John Bosco, or should I
say, at the foot of the 'answer'. Thank you St. John
Bosco...".
The first Unit has led not only to their own
successful recruiting drive (amongst non-military types). It has led to
the growth of the Salesian Family in other ways and other areas. Simbu, up
in the Highlands, has been forming their first unit for the past two years and
expect the first promises in November. This group too stands out - it is made up
of eight young professional teachers all from the Don Bosco school. Noises
are being made in Vunabosco by an ex-Salesian teaching there, who wishes to see
a unit start as soon as possible.
Not only ASC but ADMA. Gabutu has an ADMA group too. Formation
is a little less rigorous for ADMA. There's a good chance of swifter development
of other groups along these lines.
Fr Alfred is no longer
at Gabutu. Not hard to guess where he might be, with the news of a new ASC
Unit starting up in Simbu.
GLOSSARY
ASC: Association of Salesian Cooperators
NCD: National Capital District... includes Port Moresby and
most of the south eastern coastal region (that long 'tail' of New Guinea
Island).
ADMA: Clients of Mary Help of
Christians. Tricky one this. The Italian is Associazione Devoti
Maria Ausiliatrice. They were founded by Don Bosco and are based on
Turin. 'Devotees' never got the nod in English and we ended up with 'clients'
which in my book is worse. I note that people often reduce it in practice,
in English, to 'Association of Mary Help of Christians'. Makes more
sense.
________________________
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