Luis Robles from Ecuador has been engaged in mission work since he was 15 years old, and now, as a Divine Word Missionary student, he is spending time in the SVD AUS Province, opening himself up to a different culture and experience.

Luis, aged 26, is in Australia as part of the SVD’s Overseas Training Program (OTP) and says he is enjoying everything he does and “trying to make memories”.

Mission and culture are essential characteristics of an SVD; and with the two years Cross-Cultural Training Program, I was given a taste in different ministerial settings.

They included teaching English at the local high school, working with Vietnamese migrant workers, visiting the poor, engaging in parish ministries, and helping HIV/AIDS patients, in particular, teenagers living with HIV at The Mother of Perpetual Help Foundation in Nongbualamphu, Thailand.

At 28 years old, (Joseph) Hy Nguyen SVD says his life as a missionary is still in its infancy, but already, having left his home in Japan for mission experience in Papua New Guinea and now Australia, his eyes have been opened to the joy of being with people from different cultures.

Joseph grew up in Vietnam until the age of 12, when his family moved to Japan to be near his sister, who had emigrated some years earlier.