Actually, this was the last thing on my mind. Last year I was visiting my family in Costa Rica for a few days. A good friend of mine, Father Walter Arce invited me to have lunch with the Apostolic Nuncio, His Excellency Pierre Nguyễn Văn Tốt. I wondered if the Nuncio would be willing to tell his vocation story on video. This is something I have been doing for a while now. To this day I have recorded around 220 interviews in several languages. To my surprise, the Nuncio agreed to my request and later on I was able to record the interview which you may watch here:
www.vimeo.com/6016994. While having lunch with the Nuncio, he shared with us about the plight of Vietnamese priests in the United States who happened to have Hispanic communities in their parishes. They had little or no preparation at all to deal with the culture and the language. He said that this was a pressing need that was communicated to him by Father Liem Nguyen, whom he met in one of his visits to the U.S. (Father Liem Nguyen, a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, is the President of the Vietnamese Catholics in the USA).
We already knew of a Program for American priests to introduce them to the Hispanic culture in Mexico City. The Nuncio had in mind a similar program for Vietnamese Priests in Costa Rica. At the moment I did not think much about it. However, later on that day, all of the sudden it struck me. I thought that maybe there was something I could do for this cause. Why not try? Then I told Father Walter and he then informed the Nuncio. His Excellency was very gracious and immedi-ately welcomed my request. He then asked me to get in touch with Father Liem and since then we have been writing back and forth getting things ready for this first Spanish Course Program for Vietnamese Priests in Costa Rica.
I am looking forward to having our Vietnamese brother priests in Costa Rica and to help them the best way possible. To find out more keep on reading.
