PAKISTAN MISSION: Faith, Optimism, & Excellence
Vision for the Pakistan Mission
Last July 24, 201
7, the Salesians of the two- year old Delegation of Pakistan took time to sit together, among other things, to share their visions towards developing a vision for Don Bosco’s Mission in Pakistan.
- The starting question was: “What type of Salesians should we be in order to make an impact among the youth in the Pakistan context?” Instead of anchoring the vision on the young people who are the recipients of the mission we decided to focus the vision on ourselves as the agents of the mission. Living the vision ourselves is a better way of realizing it for the others.
The vision can be summarized in three values:
1) Faith: the Salesian in Pakistan must have a lot of Trust in God. He must be a man of faith to work in a cultural environment where 96.28% are Muslims and only 1.59% are Christians.(Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2017). One must keep in mind that God came to Pakistan long before the Salesians. “We are not the hero and Savior of Pakistan, God is.”
2) Optimism – The security and physical threats should not be allowed to paint a cloud of negativism in the mind of the Salesians. We do what we can and God will do the rest.
3) Excellence – A Salesian must have a grasp of one’s own weakness and strength. With a good self-knowledge as starting point, one must strive to develop oneself professionally and psychologically. He must excel and develop fully oneself inspired by St Irenaeus: “The Glory of God is Man fully alive.”
Transforming ourselves into Salesians with Faith, Optimism and Excellence, we can instil the same vision to our young people by way of personal example.
Fr Eugenio Maglasang, SDB
Delegate for Pakistan (June 2015- June 2018)
