By Fr. Tarcisius Trianto, SDB
The Valdocco-like Salesian presence among the poor young people in the rural area (500 km from Jakarta and 300 km from our Blitar City school) brings the best of our Charism into life. Our 20 teachers (Christians and Muslims) admire the family spirit and team work of our confreres that does, indeed, change the lives of our young people. Five Salesians live and pray together with 6 boarding Catholics (grades 7-9) and their simple and inspiring life becomes also a vocation invitation.
After two years of our presence, the local parish (MSC - Missionary of the Sacred Heart) priest requested our contribution to the youth ministry and Purwodadi Oratory is being born. Since September 2017 four animators have been taking care of about 30 young Catholics in twice-a-month Oratory events with a formative touch. In this way the Salesian spirit is being shared in the local Church.
Salesian community of Purwodadi has also great dreams: to attract more students, to improve the infrastructures and education environment of the school, to build a decent (not emergency-like) community house, as Purwodadi, located close to the sea shore, is also famous for almost annual floods with schools finding themselves often under 50-60 cm of water. The Salesians also pray for the possible purchase of land for a larger sports field or extension of this rather small school campus. Indeed the main dream and action requested is to share our preventive system of education and spirituality with many mission partners and young people.
Source: AustraLasia
