By Lynn F. Monahan

Hong Kong lay missioners sprout from Maryknoll roots

When Hong Kong native Jessica Ho glimpses the road to where she wants to go, she takes it. That decisiveness has made her a pioneer in Catholic mission, from an area used to receiving missioners, not sending them abroad.

Ho was studying theology in Hong Kong in the early 1980s when she came across an ad for the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Maryknoll magazine. She applied "without hesitation."

She and another Hong Kong woman, Elizabeth Woo, who coincidentally inquired about becoming a missioner at the same time, were sent to Tanzania, where Ho worked with three Maryknoll priests.

"Mission work started a new page in my life," says Ho, who returned to Hong Kong in 1985 when the project she was working on in Tanzania was turned over to the local church. That new page has turned into the story of Ho's life as the founder and president of the Hong Kong Catholic Lay Mission Association, an Asian version of the Maryknoll Lay Missioners.

Back in Hong Kong, which was then still a British territory, Ho wanted to integrate her mission experience into her local church. Ho began giving talks to parishes in Hong Kong and was asked by other laypeople to start a lay mission program there.

Ho tapped into her Maryknoll contacts and began planning the organization with the advice of Maryknoll Fathers John "Jack" Sullivan and John Cioppa and Maryknoll Sister Michelle Reynolds. By 1987, the Hong Kong Catholic Lay Mission Association had the approval of the local bishop.

"It's not my work. It's the work of the Holy Spirit," Ho says of the association, which since 1990 has sent 11 lay missioners to Africa and other parts of Asia. Three missioners are still in the field, with the longest being Lucia Wong, who has served in Cambodia since 1996.

Eunice Lo, who served in Kenya as a teacher with the Hong Kong missioners in the mid-1990s and is now vice president of the association, says she believes mission is a mutually rewarding situation: she gave and she received.

"Patience is one of the things mission taught me," says Lo, "also, dependence on God." In return, Lo, who converted to Catholicism as a young adult, says she put her organizational skills to work in mission.

Lo calls her mission experience "a response to God's love" and says going to mission was a "very natural" expression of her faith.

Ho, who is now 51, says being a missioner in a foreign land is a difficult experience and she often questioned what she was doing in Africa. She realized, however, that mission isn't just doing a lot of work but rather the most important part of mission is just being with the people of another culture. She acknowledges Maryknoll for giving shape to the Hong Kong association's approach to mission.

"We share very much the same vision as Maryknoll," she says. The Hong Kong lay missioners work with various Catholic groups abroad, besides Maryknoll.

Beyond sending missioners from Hong Kong, Ho and her associates work to promote mission awareness among local Catholics in her hometown. She notes a growing recognition of the role of laity in the Church and interest among the laity in spreading the Good News. To that end, the Hong Kong Diocese has designated 2011 as the Year of Laity, focusing on the collective responsibility of both the ordained ministers and the laity to build the community of faith.

In Hong Kong, where Catholics make up only 5 percent of the city's population of about 7 million people, evangelization is very much a local issue. Hong Kong Bishop John Tong regards evangelization as one of his first priorities, even as his diocese remains dependent upon foreign clergy. Only half of the 300 priests in his diocese are Chinese. Besides serving 353,000 Chinese Catholics, the diocese attends to another 120,000 foreign Catholics, most of whom are domestic workers from the Philippines. Bishop Tong says his diocese baptizes 6,000 people a year, half of them adults, and he hopes to raise that to 7,000 a year.

The advantage of lay missioners, Ho says, is that the diocese sends them out to mission, and later they bring the mission experience home. Even though the Hong Kong Catholic Lay Mission Association is small in numbers, she says the diocese has recognized and supported their work and she is optimistic that support will grow.

"They are proud of having lay missioners," she says.

Ho believes that with two-thirds of the world's population in Asia and only 3 percent of those Catholic, the Church has a bright future in Asia. While the Church worldwide has in the past been mostly influenced by Europe, it will be in the years to come more influenced by Asia and Africa, areas where it is now growing the most.

"The laity's role in Asia is very significant," she says.

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