First of all, the participants enjoyed two Missions-related video clips from the Australia - Pacific province (AUL) about the 'Cagliero Project' of missionary volunteers, presented by the first EAO Lay Provincial Delegate for the Missions - Ms Laureen Hichbaaba (appropriately on International Women's Day) and the Korean province video about the 5-year-old Mission Office in Seoul working closely with the Fr John Lee Foundation.
In a short powerful talk, Fr Guillermo Basanes, Councillor General for the Missions, shared the vision and SWOT analysis of the EAO missionary culture. The main focus was on missionary culture and formation of all Salesians (including also a due missionary vocation discernment), the overall need to be open to send and receive missionaries, and the importance of having the Missionary animation delegate as a member of the provincial council.
A lively inter-provincial group-sharing produced some common challenges for the provincial councils. In the open forum, many questions were raised about missionary vocation discernment and formation, and especially the need to invest more in missionary reflection (need of experts in inter-religious dialogue).
In the final intervention, the Provincial-elect of PGS, Fr Alfred Maravilla, was asked to introduce 'Project Europe' (PE) after his 7-year-long experience accompanying PE missionaries. His point on PE as Kairos for the Congregation was very much appreciated by the participants: PE can renew the whole Salesian Congregation, with a renewed concept of the mission (not Euro-centric, not just working for the poor), fostering the necessary pastoral conversion of our provinces and helping us to be more open to the truly Catholic-Universal communion in the Church and within the Congregation.
Fr. Fabio Attard the Councillor General for the Youth Ministry led the two sessions in the afternoon. Fr Fabio shared his journey with the EAO region in the past nine years and appreciated a significant growth of the YM animation in all EAO provinces, developing a very systematic approach with the focus of attention on the provincials and YM Delegates, publication and translations of the YM Framework of Reference in many EAO languages and close accompaniment of the YM Councillor and his team.
The YM Councillor also pointed to 4 main challenges of the EAO provinces, regarding
1. The pastoral leadership of the Provincials
2. Inculturation of the Preventive System of Don Bosco, systematically disseminating the Youth Ministry Framework of Reference.
3. Involvement and formation of our Lay Mission Partners
4. Family - one of the main pastoral options of the Congregation in this 6-year period.
During the visit, several videos were shown on good practice in the different areas. Some of these are available on YouTube:
AUL - Cagliero Volunteer project
CIN - Salesians and Lay Mission Partners
FIN - Paranaque multicultural and spiritual accompaniment
THA – Salesian Family animation
THA - Formation to the Social Communication (Cambodia)
VIE - Reshaping of the Salesian presences - planning culture
