Marist Asia Pacific Center (MAPAC)
The Marist Asia Pacific Center (MAPAC) started its NEW FORMATION YEAR (2018 – 2019) on June 25, 2018. On this day, our small MAPAC community welcomed five new members. They are Brothers Anitelea Fidow from Samoa; Peng Wang from China; Rubel Nokruk from Bangladesh (the 1st Brother ever from this great country to be at MAPAC); Tabunga Etuati from Kiribati and Thuong Le Danh from Vietnam.
It was a joyful event when we welcome these Brothers in a welcoming liturgy as well as through a cultural welcome. These new group of Brothers are energetic, outgoing and are wonderful singers. Brother Guangzhao Zhang also from China is another member of this 1st Year group. He arrived at the end of 2017. Therefore, there are six 1st Year Student Brothers.
They join the three 2nd Year Brothers who are from Vietnam (2) and the Solomon Islands. Altogether there are only nine student Brothers at MAPAC for this formation year.
The formation team is composed by five members: Australia (2), Argentina (1), Papua New Guinea (1) and Samoa (1).
First activities
We have started our summer modules. Firstly, there was a module on Ecology and the Cosmics. This was carried out up north at the mountain city of Baguio at the Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary. There the participating Brothers learnt about the Journey of the universe; the cosmic journey, indigenous spirituality, permaculture, worm farming, Waste management, the Great story of the universe, creation spirituality, organic gardening, Ecological economics and missionary work in relations to ecology.
A second module was on "Project Writing' that was facilitated by Mr Ashley Bulgarelli from Australia Marist Solidarity. The Brothers learnt some significant skills relating to starting a ministry project.
At present the Brothers are undergoing a workshop on 'Coaching Skills'. This module is facilitated by a senior lecturer of the Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand) with a local teacher and Marist Brothers. Participating in this module are youth from our nearby parishes as well as teachers from a public Elementary school as well as a small convent Elementary school run by the Passionist sisters. This module focus on developing coaching skills that are related to promoting participation, fun, inclusiveness, equality and respect for each other. These values or characteristics are very much in line with St Marcellin's pedagogy philosophy that in order to teach a child, one must love him … love them all equally.