The National Secretaries of education of EAO met in Taisei Gakuen, Fukuoka from May 30 until June 2, hosted by Fr Lee Sung-il, the Chairman of the Committee for High School Apostolate of Japanese Province. The group consisted of Fr Stephen Chow (CHN), Fr Gerry Healy (ASL), Fr Heru Hendarto (IDO), Fr. Lee (JPN), Fr Johnny Go (PHI) and Fr Riyo Mursanto (EAO Secretary of Education. Fr Lee and Fr Johnny Go came for the first time; they were only recently appointed by their provincials as the National Secretary of Education. Fr Arthur Leger (MIC) sent his regrets.
The warm hospitality of the Jesuit community and the ambiance helped the group to reach some points of action. First they decided to have a workshop for a greater audience August 2009 entitled Kindling the Fire. With Jesuits and lay friends in education, the workshop aims to ‘set the fire’, to prime our schools to face the challenges of our future. Second, Fr Gerry Healy (ASL) will offer a workshop on advanced teaching using information technology. The means are already available for the Jesuit schools in Australia and these will be shared with other Jesuit schools in EAO during the workshop. This is indeed an example of a concrete action on sharing resources for a better service.
Third, they will translate the GC-35 documents for our lay collaborators in education, when the official documents from Rome will be made public. Fourth, they will make a new Directory of Jesuit Schools in EAO, based on the existing data in our Province Catalogues. Fifth, in October 2008, a small team of National Secretaries will study, on the spot, a model of a school for the urban poor, the Cristo Rey School, which was started for the first time in 1996 in Chicago. The group considers it very important to look for a model school if they really want to serve those who are poor and marginalized in the big cities in the region.
To end the meeting, Fr Shogo Sumita, the Provincial of Japan, invited the group to dinner at a kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine). It was a special dinner with ‘film stars’. Fr Johnny Go and Fr Sumita were the stars in the film Francis Xavier, filmed in Japan several years ago. Arigato gozaimasu.