by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
St. Mary’s Third Floor Renovation
Father Kim is an Assistant Pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Hong Kong and the parish is starting major renovations on its Third Floor Meeting Rooms this year. The renovations will be green friendly given the planned use for solar panels and eco-roofing.
Your gift can help the parishioners of St. Mary’s Church in Hong Kong have beautiful new rooms for community gatherings while promoting care for the environment.
“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?”
Luke 14:28
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
St. Cecilia String Orchestra
Fr. Kurt J. Anderson, M.M.
Music is a wonderful connector for human beings and in Taiwan, Father Anderson has seen this come to life through this Apostolic Project that helps students become involved with the St. Cecilia String Orchestra. He notes that it is a uniting activity for the students, friends and their families as Christian and family values are promoted.
Your gift can build a love of music in children in the Taichung Diocese and connect families and friends through a thread of love and connection.
“Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.”
Psalm 33:3
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 15, 2024
St. Mary’s Altar Server Association Support
The Altar Server Association at St. Mary’s parish in Hong Kong consists of 15-20 members raging from high school to college. The two major annual events for this group are summer camp and winter retreat. Through your generosity, altar servers will be able to attend recreational events that their families are unable to afford.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
– 1 Corinthians 3:16
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 22, 2023
Vocation, Care of Creation, Social Justice Program
Supply Chain Due Diligence Program – Building relationships with migrant workers and strategic engagement with companies and associations, we involve multinational corporations to play a critical role in remediating human rights and ecological abuses in their supply chains. Being on the ground, we have already established trust with the migrant worker community, and often are the first to hear the workers’ grievances. Therefore, we find ourselves in a unique position to amplify their voices. By connecting workers with businesses, government agencies, and civil society we encourage due diligence, catalyze audits, and promote an ethical supply chain.
We begin and end prioritizing authentic worker voice. We believe that in knowing and showing the experience of migrant workers, we can foster an environment for meaningful dialogue between multinational brands & buyers, government offices, and civil society. Together this can lead to actualized remedy directly to the workers themselves.
“For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him” Colossians 1:16
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 22, 2023
Assistance to Displaced People (DCA)
Fr. John Barth is working with farmers to teach new agricultural techniques through a planned training program so the migrants become less and less dependent on food relief sent from Thailand. Since the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, a humanitarian crisis has occurred for hundreds of thousands of Myanmar people driven from their homes merely for protesting the military take-over. Homes, schools and churches have been bombed with over 2,100 people killed by the military.
Most of these Internally Displaced People (IDPs) have found safety far from home with friends and relatives, living in great poverty in isolated areas and forests for safety. Their needs are many, starting with rice and medicine. At the invitation of the Bishop Francis Vira Arpondratana, Bishop of the Diocese of Chiang Mai, Thailand, Maryknoll has agreed to work with the Caritas office of Thailand in their efforts to send much needed emergency aid to sister dioceses across the border in Myanmar.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” Matthew 25:35
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 22, 2023
Japan Migrant Ministries Office
With so many migrant workers migrating to Japan, Father Lo Xuan Dam’s project provides pastoral care for as many as possible migrant workers who are increasing steadily in Japan. With his Vietnamese background, Father will work not only Vietnamese but also Philippinos and Burmeses. Because the migrants are spread all over the country, Father will travel expansively, and also plans to train others to offer assistance through workshops and seminars.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement” 2 Corinthians 1:3”
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Virtual Outreach through Website and Podcast
Daily Gospel Reflection podcast, done in conjunction with the Digital Marketing Unit at Maryknoll, NY. In order to facilitate advertising of personal and Maryknoll programs with the faithful, a website containing weekly websites will be used. The funds requested here are specifically for the upkeep and maintenance of this website. Success will be based on the number of visitors and subscribers to this virtual event.
Daily Gospel Reflection podcast with Fr. Daniel Kim, M.M. done in conjunction with the Digital Marketing Unit at Maryknoll, NY.
“The call of each [missioner] is unique, but their journeys have a common thread. They all felt God inviting them to move out of self to something more, to leave their homes to proclaim the Gospel to people who may never hear it if not for them….The challenge for each of us is to listen for the voice of God constantly saying, ‘Go, prophesy to my people.’
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 12, 2020
Relief and Education for Burmese Refugees at Wat Prok Mon Temple
For more than two decades, Wat Prok School, established by Maryknoll two decades ago, has provided education, skill training as well as clothing, food and medical assistance to 34 and 52 Mon Migrant boys, ranging from six to seventeen years old, living at small Mon Buddhist monastery in Bangkok. The number of students varies primarily due to new students.
The boys parents are migrant workers mostly working in the fish process plant outside of Bangkok or on the fishing boats. The Maryknoll Thailand team members work with the Informal Education Department of the Thai Government to provide basic education to the boys, including Mon, Thai and English language training, some basic grammar school classes and sponsors skill training for the older boys.
Initial emphasis is on teaching the boys the Thai language, which makes them eligible for special temporary ID cards until age 17. The younger is then recognized as having a right to be in the country. It also provides protection against the boys being trafficked, given the extent of the problem of trafficking in Southeast Asia.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 12, 2020
Assistance to Refugees and Migrants
Fr. John Barth, M.M.’s project mainly focuses on Asylum Seekers, Refugees, Prisoners and Victims of Human Trafficking. We work as a team and in collaboration with Caritas-Thailand, Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees (COERR) and five Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Bangkok, as well as close cooperation with the Thai people in our effort to assist these various groups of people in need.
Many people continue to flee their homes, villages and nations for a variety of reasons, mainly Religious and Political persecution. In the city of Bangkok alone, it is estimated that we have over 6,000 illegal Refugees and Asylums Seekers. The people we reach out to are people running from the violence in their homelands and they come from the various countries of Asia and Africa.
Poor living conditions and violence in their homelands have resulted in an increase in refugees into Thailand from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other countries in the Middle East. Fr. Barth and others take care of their physical needs by providing food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education to refugee families as well as the poor Hill Tribes people in North of Thailand.
These poor people speak little Thai and need medical care, food at times, transportation for their children to and from school. We do our best to protect, feed and help, as we continue to be inspired by Pope Francis, who asks all of us to continue to reach out to the Stranger, the Refugee and the Poor.
