On November 5, 2018 the Solemnity of Christ the King, 4 aspirants received their missionary cross from the PGS Provincial, Fr. Alfred Maravilla, at the Holy Name of Jesus mission Parish in Bomana, at the outskirts of Port Moresby. It was a fitting setting because the aspirants come here to animate the Sunday liturgy.

The Namuncurà Experience is an integral part of the formation program for first year college aspirants of PGS. They give up their Christmas holidays to spend six weeks in the Salesian missions in Araimiri, Gulf Province where they will be inserted into the life and activities of the Salesian community, particularly in animating the oratory and catechising the children in the mission stations. Through the Namuncura Experience aspirants get a first-hand experience of Don Bosco’s missionary work as well as discern if their initial attraction to Salesian life is indeed a Salesian vocation.

“I look forward to this experience as a way of strengthening the missionary spirit we received at baptism and confirmation by getting out of our comfort zones and experiencing the joy of evangelising,” explained Sisto Oge. “ Maybe it is a beautiful coincidence that these four, all from the Solomon Islands, are sent to the Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea: Melanesians sent as missionaries among Melanesians”, explained Fr. Maravilla to the parishioners before giving the missionary cross.

“I am convinced that we aspirants live Don Bosco’s spirituality by living the Salesian Youth Spirituality so that we may bear witness to Jesus in ordinary daily life in our families, in our school and in fhe wider society,” said Sisto Oge. “Surely, after this Namuncurà Experience we PGS aspirants will be more eager to reach out to poor and marginalised youth. Like Blessed Zeferino Namuncurà we will be even more conscious ‘to study to be useful to my people”!