By Fr Charles Duster

Fr Duster, from the USA, has worked in Japan and Fiji. During a visit to the Philippines in 1967 he and another Columban were to have traveled on a flight from Bacolod to Cebu on 6 July. Although slightly delayed because they had visited another Columban in hospital, they were still on time for checking in but they weren't allowed on board. The plane left early and crashed, all 21 on board being killed.

The ways of Providence are unusual and wonderful.

It started with a simple question over the dinner table at the Columban House on the north side of Chicago, ‘Rafa, what was your first contact with the Columban Fathers?’

Rafael (Rafa) Ramirez is a Columban seminarian from Chile who was completing a ten-month English language study program at De Paul University and returned to Chile in January 2010. He is continuing his theological studies at Catholic University, Santiago, in preparation for his first missionary assignment next year as a Columban missionary.

An American college student discerns God’s calling and gives back by volunteering in the Columban Catholic Social Justice Ministry in Washington DC.

People have always asked me what I want to be when I ‘grow up’. At age 10, I wanted to be a fashion designer; by 13, the first female president of the United States. I have dreamt of being everything from a high school English teacher to a Peace Corps volunteer. Now when people ask me what I want to be, I just smile, shrug my shoulders, and tell them that I don’t know. And I honestly don’t.

But, I have an idea. My parents have instilled in me the importance of helping others, and I have learned from their example about our duty as citizens of the world to give back to our families and communities. We have the responsibility and capability to make a positive, significant difference in our world.

As such, I have been involved in community service organizations in high school and college, but I never knew how to turn this experience into a lifelong career.

As a high school senior, I read this quote from John Glavin, an English professor at Georgetown University: ‘It’s a very old Jesuit ideal that people are in the world to help save it.’ In that moment I realized that no matter how great it would be to own a smoothie shop on a Caribbean island – my life ambition at the time – I could best live my life working in service to others.(Editor’s note: ‘Smoothies’ are made from non-fat yogurt, real fruit juice, frozen and fresh fruits, berries and ice. A first-cousin of halo-halo?)

In the USA the Columbans have established the Columban Affiliates program. The executive director is Ariel A. Presbitero from Sta Ursula Parish, Binangonan, Rizal, who worked as a Columban lay missionary in Brazil and Peru. The Columbans worked in Ariel’s parish for many years. His email address is ariel15brasil@yahoo.com (please note the‘s’ in ‘Brasil) . Many Catholics want to answer God’s call for them to become missionaries, but don’t see themselves making a life-long commitment to overseas cross-cultural missionary work. You can learn more about the Columban Affiliates atwww.columban.org/content/view/257/1.

Below are the stories of two women from the Philippines who work in Los Angeles and who see their professional work as an expression of their being missionaries.

A Call to Care for the Elderly

Mindy Miñoza is a Columban Affiliate in Los Angeles who works full time as a caregiver to elderly patients. Mindy is from San Antonio Village, Cebu City, and has been involved with the Columban Affiliates program since December 2006, participating in Christmas caroling, the Affiliates’ ‘Dancing for the World’ event and other Affiliates’ activities. She also assists Columban Father Peter Kenny in promoting Columban Mission magazine in the Los Angeles area.

By Father Bobby Gilmore

FOR MY FATHER

Our trivial fights
over spading
The vegetable patch,
painting the garden fence
ochre instead of blue,

And my resistance
to Armenian food
In preference
for everything American,
Seemed, in my struggle
for identity,
to be the literal issue . . .