Mission Moments now

I was eleven years old.. Our school had a visit of a Priest in white and wearing a red hat. He was a missionary in Africa…He gave a very interesting talk. He asked “Who wants to be a missionary?”…I put my hand up. And from that time onwards. I was on the list for the Mission.…

At the back of my father’s bike I arrived at a mission house; it was very cold inside. During the winter the snow came down the tiles. But it was a mission house. At the end of the war they blew u up the drawbridge the axel fell on the roof. Luckily we slept on the attic of a factory. We attended H Mass at the near convent. On it’s alter was a picture of the Good Shepherd. That was a mission picture for me.

During the war we were sheltered in a concrete cellar down the presbytery Suddenly the door on top of the staircase opened and we saw the priest smoking; the tobacco smell  was not a stink but Virginia. We could smell the liberation...Hundred of priests ordained during the war went off to their missions.     

In the Fathers forest stands a chapel. I designed it and with three others built it. My hands are in and on it. Year of my 1954, Ordination for the Mission.

The Captain on the plane. said “No landing in Paraparaumu... Diversion to Ohakea”.

At the end of the day there was a Storm in the city. The House of priests was very big. But my room is not bigger that two beds, above the door Mission doors are often small.

Next day I saw in the city a mission church; no, a university. Not for the mission.

As a missionary I had to study mathematics and Science.

Years later a was flying over a building like a plane, Viard College., on a warm day

 In the class room I read E=mc@ not mission statement, but

“Mathematics is the language by which God wrote the universe” a truly mission statement

Nearby a little church. People were singing a mission song. Maori

I am in a Mission place. All of NZ is a mission Kiaora My mission? And more

After 50 years of my mission. I went to the Netherlands, for a visit, not to stay.

In Boxtel there is a castle, with spare room. In the room there is a chair. I sit on it, resting from 50 years of Mission. I made it as a missionary. Thank God

John Heijnen