(ANS – Rome) – While the course for the new missionaries continues, the stories from those being interviewed are always new and interesting. Today it is the turn of David Tulimelli, an Indian convert and now a priest and behind him the experience of six years as a missionary in Sudan, where he will return at the end of the course.
 
Before you became a Christian you were a Hindu. Was it difficult hearing the call to become  a Catholic and then a priest?
Not very much in fact because my parents had already become Catholics  before I did. Now the whole family, including my brothers are all Catholics. It was a little more difficult beginning the journey towards the priesthood. I had met the Salesian for the first time when I was in elementary school at Nuzvid, in Andra Pradesh, because they were running the regional diocesan seminary across the road. I told them I wanted to become a priest and they said they would begin to guide me  for some time. That happened for two years and then I decided to try my vocation in their aspirantate.

You have already spent six years  as missionary in Sudan. From your experience what are the most necessary qualities?
When I had just arrived in Sudan the first thing Fr Ernesto de Gasperi, a Salesian missionary there told me was: “Accept everyone, and judge no one.” Even before I had  left, while I was waiting for the visa for Sudan, I met again the first Salesian I had known Fr Johann Lens, my spiritual father in the stages of my vocational discernment. So on that occasion I asked his advice about how I might be a good missionary and he told me three things: “Think well of all, speak well of all and do good to all.” That became my motto.

Then another very important thing is being present. Being among the people will make them happy; I learned this from experience. When I was there in Sudan there were so many problems, people came asking you for things, they had no food … but just the presence among them of  a Salesian missionary, used to calm them down and bring  them joy. 

How is this training course helping you?
I felt the need for it because when I went from India to Sudan I didn’t have this opportunity to open myself up to the different cultures. In Sudan people from many countries were working I did not have sufficient preparation to deal with the different mentalities I after this course I shall look at things differently; for example, before I thought that English was a superior language, but here I have encountered so many languages! So I am becoming much more open to other cultures.

Why did you offer to go on the mission “ad gentes” rather than carry out your ministry among young Indians?
It is the question I asked myself in 2000. I was a decision I did not take lightly. But looking at Fr Lens, who had come from Belgium and was a missionary for 60 years, I thought I would like to be like him. I once asked him why he had decided to become a missionary and he told me: “I was sent”. And that touched me to the heart.

Published 17/09/2012