Quang Đà, the parish in the mountains where every year "hundreds are baptized"
The church cares for a community of farmers and poor workers of Krong Noh district in the south of Vietnam. The mountainous terrain makes it difficult for faithful to travel to meetings, they have to cover 80 km just to go to mass. For almost 20 years Fr. Anton Nguyễn Phi Hùng goes to visit each household, baptizing 200 catechumens every Easter.
Hanoi (AsiaNews) - To serve a community of believers scattered in the mountains, where it is difficult to move, meet and go to Mass, but where faith is strong and growing every year. This is the mission of Fr. Anton Nguyễn Phi Hùng, pastor of Quang Đà Church, Diocese of Ban Ma Thuat (Krong district Noh), who has been taking care of a small poor community in South Vietnam for nearly 20 years.
The Quang Đà church was founded in the 1990s to serve the population of the economic zone of Đăknông, 250 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, on the border with Cambodia. There, the majority of the population consists of poor factory workers and farmers. The topography of the area is very complex due to the mountainous territory. Earlier, the diocesan priests sought to bring together some small communities scattered in the various districts.
The mission of the Church immediately gave much fruit: when in 2008 the church became Đà Quang parish, there were about 3600 faithful, nearly 1000 Christian families. Of these, 2700 were Kinh [the largest ethnic group in Vietnam - ed] and 800 of other ethnicities. To date the number of Catholics has grown to 6 thousand people, about 10% of the local population.
In 1999 Anton Nguyễn Phi Hùng was not yet a priest and worked as a deacon in the Phúc Lộc parish. The parishioners were distant from the church, living in different areas. Hùng worked hard to re-establish contact and bring people together, going to visit them despite the difficulties. The parishioners were very impressed by his attitude and on a local blog wrote: "Brother Hung visited us. He climbed mountains and forded rivers to reach every single household. Thanks to his regular visits, over many days and months, the communities in the district of Krong Noh were reborn".
Anton Nguyễn Phi Hùng was ordained a priest in 2000. Vice pastor at Phúc Lộc, he continued his missionary work. In 2001 he baptized hundreds of people, adults and children, and also "legalized" hundreds of marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics.
In 2006, the vicar of Phúc Lộc entrusted the Noh Krong district to Fr. Hùng where he organizes the apostolate with lay people, setting up charity events and catechesis for young people and adults. To go to Mass in the parish of Quang Đà, the faithful must also travel 70-80 km. For this reason, Fr. Hung has built five sub-parishes. Every year the priest baptizes about 200 catechumens.
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17/02/2006
