 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My name is Francis Magung, I
come from Hungarian province. Currently I
am the Mission Secretary there. I have been
in Hungary for 11 years. I was studying in
Chicago for 6 years. First in Epworth and
then in CTU in Chicago. After ordination in
2005, I went to Hungary and I have been in
Hungary since then.
I am a Divine Word Missionary priest coming
from Indonesia. I was born in Indonesia and
actually joined the SVDs in Indonesia. After
I finished my philosophy then I came to the
United States to study my theology. Since
I have been working in Hungary for 11 years,
actually this year, 2016, we just celebrated
our 100 years anniversary of our presence
in Hungary. We arrived in Hungary in 1916.
Actually the first SVDs missionaries came
to Hungary, first of all they wanted to serve
the German speaking people in Hungary. Since
they saw many vocations there, so they started
to open formation houses for boys who are
preparing themselves to be future missionaries
as priests or brothers . But unfortunately,
after a couple of years of this very fruitful
ministry, the communist regime arrived in
Hungary, they prohibited the SVDs to work and
serve in Hungary along with other religious
congregations. So our confreres went abroad
either to Austria, and Germany. When they
became priests, when they were ordained, they
were sent everywhere around the world: South
America, Africa, Papa New Guinea, Indonesia
and only in 1990s some of them were asked
to come back to restart our mission work,
mission service in Hungary. Since then, we
started a new our presence in Hungary and actually
some of these SVD priests didn't have a
chance to go abroad so they actually worked
in Hungary as like a diocesan priest. When
the province was reopened in the 1990s then
they also rejoined the Society and that is
how they restarted. But soon they realized
if only the Hungarian priests are there, they
were already like 70 years old when they came
back, so they started to invite missionaries
from abroad and the first missionary came
from Poland in the year 2000 and he is now
our current Provincial Grzegorz Burbela. After
that they invited some students also from
Indonesia and then more missionaries from
different parts of the world. And now today
for example we are very international in Hungary.
I think in Europe one of the most international
SVD province in Europe. And on October 8th
we just celebrated our centenary, our the
100 year anniversary actually this was the
closing celebration. Every year we celebrate
a National Day of Mission or Mission Sunday.
We usually celebrated it on the second week,
second Saturday of October so this year we
combined these two celebrations. The centenary
celebration itself started three years ago.
So we had different events to prepare ourselves
for this big celebration as a thanksgiving.
Different kind of cultural programs, and also
symposium on Mission at the school in Budapest.
We also decided three years ago to make a
kind of fundraising. We celebrated 100 years
anniversary of our province. We thought of
a new mission in Africa. And at that time
we were thinking of Sudan because Sudan just
began their mission there. As a token of our
presence and thanksgiving to God for 100 years
anniversary we wanted to support a new mission.
During this celebrations last Saturday or
two weeks ago on October 8 we handed over
this donation to the Generalate. This was
very nice. The celebration itself was also
very nice. Bishop came to celebrate with us.
There were different kind of programs. There
was as speech from the Provincial, representative
of the Hungarian parliament, and then also
the Nuncio of Hungary, also there were testimonies.
One from SVD, one from our SSpS sisters, and
also one from our lay partners. Because in
Hungary we have different lay groups, one
of them is mission prayer group. They are
spread out through out Hungary, so we create
a network of prayer. Like a spiritual mission
network that people can pray for mission.
So these mission groups, they meet once a
month, twice a month and they pray for mission
and they also support us financially or whatever
they can. So the celebration was very nice.
The whole day celebration on our own grounds
in Budapest at Nazareth Mission House we call
it, many of our friends came from all over
Hungary including two of our parishes. In
Hungary we have two parishes. One is a regular
parish and one is specifically working with
the Gypsies. So it is a Gypsy ministry and
from this parish for example a group of young
people they performed nicely for the celebration
so it was very joyful for everyone.
