Divine Word Missionaries

Holy Week in the Bush
By Frt. Tam Nguyen, SVD

Tam was born in Vietnam and arrived in the United States in 1992 at the age of 22. He graduated in 1999 from Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa, but decided to take “time out” from seminary formation before entering the novitiate. He worked for two years before applying for the Associate Program. He spent one year of formation at Divine Word Theologate studying theology and then entered the novitiate. Tam professed First Vows as a Divine Word Missionary on August 16, 2003. Tam returned to the Theologate for another year of studies, and is now in Togo, West Africa for his CTP (Cross-Cultural Training Program). He will spend one year learning French and one of the local languages like Ewe, and two years of ministry before returning to the States to complete his studies for the priesthood. He plans to be profess Perpetual Vows and be ordained in June 2009.

Editor’s Note: The following is another excerpt from an e-mail from missionary Tam Nguyen, SVD, to his college professor, Fr. Ken Anich, SVD.

Dear Fr. Ken,

I spent two weeks in the bush (north of Benin) to help our 18 stations during the Holy Week and Easter celebration. Each day I went to each village by myself and spent the night there with them. The days were very hot, so I gathered all the children under the tree to tell them stories about Jesus and teach them French while the adults were working in the fields. At night we gathered around a large bon fire – eating, telling stories, dancing, and singing (with their drums, off course!). I had a wonderful time.

At one station we had 20 baptisms on Holy Saturday, but we didn't have any baptisms at other stations. Off course, we don't count the number of baptisms as the main measure of our success in missionary work, but we do need some – otherwise, the church is only for the priests and religious.

The majority of people in the north of Togo and Benin are Muslims because they are allowed to have many wives, which seems to be more attractive to them due to their polygamy system. Also, because there are more women then men (the ratio is about 4 out 5 are women), the women don't have much choice here, you see. And if by the age of 15 they aren’t yet married, the social system puts a curse on them as if they are abnormal. Coming from the outside, one cannot readily understand why little girls at the age of 10 are often pregnant. Sexual morality and HIV are challenging for pastoral care, along with other problems that arise from being poor.

Now I am back to the regional house at Lome. The political situation is getting very hot. There are demonstrations everywhere in the city as the election day approaches - the 24th of April. Yesterday 6 people died and 25 were injured from the demonstration as a result of shootings. One of my Togolese friends called me yesterday to join them in demonstrations, but I couldn't because I had to work on my homily for today. God's providence! Last Friday I was in the demonstration by the religious in the diocese and other churches to walk for justice, for a fair and free election.

Well, my first part of OTP is not yet finished, but I find myself already involved with pastoral work and social justice issues which are very interesting to me. I just wanted to let you know I am doing great, feeling at home with the people, and adapting to the heat, the culture, and everything else is just find.

Please send my regards to the community.

Tam

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