(ANS – Rome) – Once again this year the contribution of the  “Saint John Bosco” Province of  Vietnam to the missions is a generous one; on 30 September 17 young Vietnamese in initial formation will be commissioned. About 90 Salesians from Vietnam have left for the “missio ad gente” in the last 5 years. ANS put some questions to Giuseppe Thran Thien Puc, 28 years of age heading for Hong Kong, for whom knowledge about  the experience of other missionaries was important.

How do you feel now that the preparatory training course is coming to an end and the time for departure approaches?
I am certainly feeling quite moved. The missionary vocation in itself is something exciting and now I feel very enthusiastic about my missionary vocation. The course was very useful and it helped me to think much more deeply about the roots of my vocation, which is always a call from Jesus. It has helped me to understand the best way of entering a new culture, the process of inculturation.

How did your family take your decision?
My mother accepted this decision right from the start; my father on the other hand was not in agreement at the beginning. It needs to be said that I am their only son! It took me some time to speak with my father and to explain that this was my vocation and the decision to leave was the most important thing in my life, and in the end he also understood.

What is the reason for so many young Salesians from Vietnam leaving to become missionaries?
I really don’t know! I know it’s a call from God, a gift … a great gift. I can also say something else: when I entered the prenovitiate there were many Vietnamese  missionaries who had returned from the missions and who told us about their experiences in the various places they had been. I was quite moved by their stories , and I felt the urge to want to become like them.

What do you think you have to offer to the young people in Hong Kong? And what do you think they can give you?
When I began this training course I also began to understand better the Hong Kong culture, to know it and to appreciate it better. I think that as soon as I arrive there, right from the start  I shall try to express and to transmit to the young those Christian values and beliefs that I acquired in Vietnam. I shall try myself to live these two cultures together. At the beginning I want to play with the youngsters, share their hobbies and in this way become their friend.  Then it will a matter of speaking to them about religion, family, friends …

On their part I think that Hong Kong youth can make my vocation stronger and make me return to the deeper roots of my commitment.

Do you have some model of a missionary that you would like to resemble?
Certainly my missionary confreres from Vietnam. Then among those already well-known the holy martyrs Bishop Luigi Versiglia and Fr Callisto Caravario; these are people I know well because in our novitiate we studied their biographies in what was called the “Small Congress.”

Published 25/09/2012