Columban Missionaries in Myanmar

20/08/2026

August 20, 2026. A Closing ceremony of batch (30) at Rebirth Rehabilitation Center.
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August 20, 2026 ya shani Prat N'nan gawgap Ginra a Masat yang (30) jawngma ni hte jawng yu poi lamang galaw lu saga ai.

14/08/2026

August 12, 2026.

SLRC- Student Learning Resources Center, led by Columban priest Fr. Kurt Zion Pala, celebrated the graduation of PYDP Batch 6! ✨🎓

Over the past eight months, the students in PYDP were trained in various skills at the center and completed a three-month internship program in different organizations and companies.
We sincerely thank the benefactors and everyone who's been supporting SLRC.
Congratulations to all PYDP Batch 6 graduates! 🎉🎓

11/08/2026

ARE WE GOING TO EAT WITH OUR HANDS? Article by Fr. Kurt Zion Pala.
"One youth asked as we discussed how to celebrate Laudato Si Week. I approached the Myitkyina Parish Youth leader together with his committee to asked them to facilitate two activities - celebrate the opening of the Laudato Si Week with the celebration of a Mass for Creation and film-showing of the documentary "The Letter" to parish youth followed by a panel discussion allowing young people to ask questions from a panel composed of youth development workers.
Traditionally, many Burmese people (Bamar) eat with their hands (especially rice and curry), although chopsticks are also commonly used in Myanmar, particularly for noodles and some dishes. Kachin people traditionally also eat with their hands, especially when eating rice-based meals and traditional dishes. In Kachin culture, eating is often a communal experience around shared dishes, and hands are an important part of connecting with food.
As a Filipino, I also eat with my hands at home. But since arriving in Myanmar I have learned to use bamboo chopsticks when eating. Most shops in the country use single-use bamboo chopsticks wrapped in plastic. Shops and markets also always use single-used plastics when packaging or selling products. During events single - used plastics continue to be used to wrapped tables and food. Food wrapped in leaves are provided but are now wrapped in single-used plastic. Small water-bottles are also distributed to everyone. After every event, we generate large amounts of plastic waste.
This was not always the reality. Traditional leaves were used to wrap food in the past. Mothers would carry baskets to the market. Drink from bamboo cups and ate with our hands. We never used plastic.
That day the group decided to celebrate a "plastic-free" Laudato Si Week.
When we receive Christ, we receive him with our hands. Hands that are bruised and wounded. Hands that also touch and help friends. Hands that toil the land and protect it. Hands that harvest and, finally, hands that bring the fruits of the Earth to God.
What does eating with our hands remind us? Three lessons we can learn from eating with our hands: connection and presence, humility and simplicity, and community and sharing.
Connection and Presence—"Food is a relationship." When we eat with our hands, we touch, feel, and experience the food directly. It reminds us that eating is not only about filling our stomachs but about being present and connected. Jesus often shared meals with ordinary people. The table became a place of friendship, acceptance, and communion. Humility and Simplicity—"We are part of creation.” Using our hands reminds us that we come from the earth. Before tools and utensils, humans used their hands to gather, prepare, and share food. It can teach gratitude for farmers, nature, and the work behind every meal.
And finally Community and Sharing — “No one eats alone” Hands are used to share food, serve others, and participate in a common meal. In many Asian and Indigenous cultures, eating together strengthens family and community bonds. Kachin cultural connection: Traditional meals often emphasize hospitality, generosity, and sharing. The act of offering food is a sign of respect and relationship.
At the opening mass for the Laudato Si Week, the youth prepared symbols to be offered during the offertory. Kachin girls led the procession with the traditional Manau dance, waving their hands in praise and thanksgiving to God. Young people also carried in their hands symbols that represented the struggles and hopes of young people and Creation in Myanmar. The symbols included soil (Earth), candle (fire), fan (air), river water (water), and tree seedling. The youth also brought a basket filled with the harvest. The Mali Hka Cross was lifted by three youths. The Cross made from wood collected from the river after a huge flood that destroyed many businesses and houses in the city. The Cross itself is a symbol of the suffering of the young people but also their redemption and hope.
This year's Laudato Si Week theme "From Hope to Action," reminds us that the time to ACT is NOW. The Earth cannot wait. Let's start eating with our hands."

06/08/2026

[English Version Below]

St. Columban သာသနာ အသင်းဂိုဏ်း၏ ထောက်ပံ့ကူညီမှုရရှိထားသော SLRC - Student Learning Resources Center သည် လူငယ်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေး ဒီပလိုမာအစီအစဉ် (Diploma in Positive Youth Development Program- PYDP) ၏ အမှတ်စဉ် (၉) သင်တန်းအတွက် ကျောင်းသားသစ်များကို စတင်ခေါ်ယူနေပြီ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။
ဤသင်တန်းသည် ကချင်ပြည်နယ်၊ မြစ်ကြီးနားမြို့ရှိ ထိခိုက်လွယ်ပြီး နေရာရွှေ့ပြောင်းခံရသော လူငယ်များအတွက် ခေါင်းဆောင်မှု၊ အသက်မွေးဝမ်းကျောင်းနှင့် အလုပ်အကိုင်ရရှိနိုင်စွမ်းဆိုင်ရာ စွမ်းရည်များကို အဓိကထား၍ ၈ လကြာ သင်ကြားပေးမည့် လေ့ကျင့်ရေးအစီအစဉ် တစ်ရပ် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၈ လကြာ သင်တန်းပြီးဆုံးပါက ကျောင်းသားများအနေဖြင့် သင်ယူခဲ့သည်များကို လက်တွေ့အသုံးချနိုင်ရန်နှင့် လုပ်ငန်းခွင်အတွေ့အကြုံများ ရရှိစေရန်အတွက် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ မိတ်ဖက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့်အတူ ၃ လကြာ လက်တွေ့လုပ်ငန်းခွင် အလုပ်သင် အစီအစဉ် (Internship) ကို ဆက်လက် လုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။

ဤသင်တန်းနှင့် ၎င်း၏ အစီအစဉ်များကို Columban Missionaries ၏ ရက်ရောစွာ လှူဒါန်းထောက်ပံ့သူများက ကူညီပံ့ပိုးပေးလျက် ရှိပါသည်။ ထို့အပြင် ဤသင်တန်းအား ဘုရားကျောင်းဝင်းအတွင်း၌ အခြေစိုက်နေထိုင်ခွင့်ပြုထားသည့် စိန်ပက်ထရစ်ဘုရားရှိခိုးကျောင်း (St. Patrick Church, Shatapru) ဘုန်းတော် ကြီးများ၊ ဘာသာဝင်များ အားလုံးကို အထူးပင် ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါတယ်။

PYDP batch -9 အားတက်ရောက်လိုပါက စတင်လက်ခံနေပြီဖြစ်ပါတယ်။အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ ဖုန်းနှင့် Facebook တို့မှ တစ်ဆင့်ဆက်သွယ်စုံစမ်းနိုင်ပါတယ်။

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[English Version]

The Columban-supported Student Learning Resources Centre (SLRC) is now accepting new students for Batch 9 of the Diploma in Positive Youth Development Program. An 8-month long leadership, livelihood, and employability skills-focused training program for vulnerable and displaced young people in Myitkyina, Kachin State.

After 8 months, a three-month internship program with our partner organizations follow, to allow students practice what they have learned and gain work experience.

The Centre and its programs programs is supported by benefactors of the Columban Missionaries. The Center also is grateful to the parish, the priests and parishioners of St. Patrick Church for allowing the Center to stay inside the parish compound.

Come and join us! We are now ready to accept students to the program.

05/08/2026

A MISSION OF HOPE IN MYITKYINA
Article by Fr. Jeongrak Lee.

"The journey to this place was far from smooth right from the start. Due to the unstable situation in Myanmar, I had to spend days waiting helplessly, with no idea when flights would resume. It was only after waiting for more than three weeks past my scheduled departure date that I could finally set foot on this new mission ground.
Arriving late at night, I couldn’t get a proper look at my surroundings on the first day. The next morning, the view before my eyes felt completely foreign. Before I could even fully take in the scenery—a peculiar blend of urban atmosphere and rustic countryside—I found myself boarding another plane heading to my final destination, Myitkyina.Upon finally arriving, I could sense that Myitkyina was a tapestry of diverse cultures, blending Buddhist traditions, Myanmar’s native heritage, and influences from neighboring China. The Columban House, where I am currently staying, is located within the St. Luke’s Church compound in an area called Eden. Surrounded by lush, dense trees, it offers a serene atmosphere that makes me feel as though I am living deep within the heart of nature. However, once I stepped outside the headquarters, the center of Myitkyina presented a different reality—a tense, unfamiliar atmosphere where urban and rural elements coexisted.
As I began adjusting and exploring various places, countless questions welled up within me: "What am I supposed to do here? What kind of life does God desire for me?" After deep meditation, I offered a fervent prayer, asking God to grant me the grace to willingly and joyfully remain in this very place where His touching hand is so deeply needed.
With this prayer in my heart, I began my formal language studies.
To be completely honest, having to learn a brand-new language from scratch in an entirely unfamiliar environment at the age of mid-40s brought a heavy sense of pressure. Nevertheless, praying that this learning process would not be for my own sake, I am gradually familiarizing my mouth with these strange words. While some days this time feels endlessly tedious, on other days, I discern God’s providence, realizing that He is working through this very season to reveal His hand.
This process of adaptation is a massive learning experience for me; it goes far beyond merely acquiring language skills and knowledge to encompassing everything in Myitkyina—the people's habits, customs, long-standing traditions, and Buddhist culture.
Of course, since what I have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg, I am simply trying to observe quietly and understand. In this frustrating space where I cannot fully comprehend the locals and my communication remains clumsy, I realize that I am currently passing through a spiritual tunnel of "waiting and patience."
As I walk through my own tunnel of learning, I suddenly reflect on the reality of this land. The residents here must also be silently enduring a long, dark tunnel of pain and suffering from years of conflict, earnestly waiting for this time to pass and for the true Light to come. Just as I hope to safely cross my tunnel of learning and adaptation, I join my heart in prayer that they, too, may soon face the dawn breaking through the darkness. After the deep night, the early dawn inevitably arrives. When I wake up in this unfamiliar climate, my room is often filled with the clear chirping of birds, or at times, by fierce thunder, lightning, and pouring rain. I believe that these massive, pure sounds of nature become a grand anthem of praise that fills the heart of God. Furthermore, I earnestly pray that these sounds will wash away the wounds of this land, serving as God’s profound comfort that brings true peace and hope to us all."

04/08/2026

HAPPY PRIESTS’ DAY!
Today, August 4, we celebrate the Feast of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of priests. Let us pray for them!
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Dai ni gaw St. John Mary Vianney a n'htoi rai nna Jau ni a n'htoi mung rai nga ai. Mungkan ting kaw nga ai jau ni a matu akyu hpyi ya ga.

04/08/2026

July 3, 2026. What a day at CLAY Center with the Columban Missionaries! We dove deep into "Integral Ecology," learning to 'See, Judge, Act' in the morning and reflecting on our shared home with 'The Letter' film in the evening. We give thanks for giving us the change to share with you all!

30/07/2026

"Called to Mission, Called to love."
Meaningful sharing video of Matthew Tu Hkawng (Columban Student). May his missionary spirit and dedication continue to inspire our faith community! ✝️

29/07/2026

We are on Tiktok now! Please follow us on Tiktok! https://www.tiktok.com/?_r=1&_t=ZS-98QYuHia9xc

We are on YouTube now! Please follow us on YouTube! https://youtube.com/?si=LN978h6WR2JHdcox ******************************
For any inquiry,
☎️ 09786879056, 09671438929.
📧 [email protected]

29/07/2026

Columban Lay Missionary, Michael Javier shares how he collects and uses recycled plastics. ♻️

Watch full video here:
https://youtu.be/ckZhVD6iHSc?si=FgRforilJJNRzaqU

Columban Lay Missionary Michael Javier, assigned to Myanmar, explai...