Dear Friends,

Well it’s summer time and Christmas is almost upon us. Even after all these years as a missionary in the southern hemisphere, I still love the novelty of Christmas in summer. The tradition of sitting outside on warm evenings at carols by candlelight, with children running around joyfully is a beautiful one.

And yet, we are aware that elsewhere in the world, things are not so happy this Christmas. As I write this message we are seeing unimaginable scenes of human misery coming daily from the besieged city of Aleppo in Syria. And in Berlin, people have been killed by a truck attack on a Christmas market.

Such terrible scenes make us ever more committed to welcoming the Christ Child into our hearts and into our world this Christmas.

We pray that our hearts and minds be transformed by the Prince of Peace so that we ourselves become agents of His peace, in our own lives and in the world.

I take this opportunity to thank you, our friends and partners in mission, for your support of the Divine Word Missionaries this year and we pray that together, we will explore new areas for mission in the New Year.

May God bless you and your family this Christmas. And may we all join in prayer for the people of Aleppo, Berlin, and for people everywhere who are living in desperate need of peace this Christmas.

Yours in the Word,

Fr Henry Adler SVD
Provincial