The morning Eucharist was animated by the China Province and Fr Guillermo Basanes with his short and deep homily about the necessary “sweat and blood” watering of the soil in the EAO countries gave a missionary challenge to all. The Rector Major as presider entrusted the whole Team Visit to Don Bosco.
The first two morning session were dedicated to the opening, presentation of all participants (only 4 members were absent due to health, visa and own school commitment) - 11 provincial councils and 6 regional coordinators for the sectors together with Fr Cereda, the Vicar of the Rector Major, 5 General Councilors and Fr Eusebio Munoz, the Delegate of the Rector Major for the Salesian Family. Then followed the study of the EAO region statistics 2007-2016, introduced by the Regional Councillor and studied in the Province working groups.
The two afternoon sessions were dedicated to the “Reshaping of the Salesian presences” one of the main themes of this 6 year period. Fr Cereda introduced this First Theme of the 2017 Team Visit with a short overview of the survey done by the EAO provinces on this theme. Then followed a 60-minute workshop in the provincial groups. The last session of the day was an Assembly to share the provincial progress, difficulties and way forward.
At the end of the day the Rector Major offered his 20-minute wrap-up of the day, focusing on the main emerging directions for the animation and governance of the provinces: To live with a vision and not to be carried away by the emergencies, face with concrete action the reality of vocation fragility and consistently invest in the formation of formators and leadership in our provinces.
The EAO Team Visit is characterized by a very close fraternal environment among the members coming from almost all 22 countries. For each theme there are two short video clips with good practices ('Ad gentes missionary of Vietnam' was watched and appreciated). On the main stage there is a large map of the EAO region that is slowly becoming the face of Don Bosco, with the action resolutions of each province as fruit of the group workshops.
In the evening of March 7 all participants enjoyed the Salesian Family welcoming dinner animated by hundreds of students from almost all the Salesian Schools of Thailand with their wonderful dances and music that enchanted everybody.
