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"Come, follow Me...."

The Basilian Fathers continue to be blessed with men seeking to follow the Basilian Way. Below are photos of two of our Novitiates, Noviciado San Basilio in Tehuacán, Mexico, and St. Basil's Novitiate in Sugar Land, Texas. Also, in Bogota, Colombia, Scholastics (Seminarians) Oscar Fernando Gómez Soto and José Edward Escobar Mejía, study under Rev. Bob Barringer, Master of Scholastics, and Rev. Vincent Thompson, Assistant Master. In Toronto, Canada, Scholastics José Jaime Del Toro, Benjamin Andrew Martin, and Glenn William McDonald, study under Rev. Thomas Rosica, Master of Scholastics, and Rev. Daniel Wai-Sang Chui, Assistant Master.

We Are Building a Church

Construction is beginning on the new Ecce Homo church in Medellin. This project could not have begun without the support of our co-missionaries! A heartfelt thank you to our generous donors from the pastor, Father Bob Seguin, and the people of this parish. As the photos on this page show, the construction begins at the bottom. 

Father Seguin reports, “The first task is to install piers and a three story building at the bottom of the incline to support the hill on which the future church will be built. Men labor with shovels and wheelbarrows to excavate for the footings and piers. The piers are more than a meter in diameter and depths vary from three meters to eight meters.

The last two days of August saw the roof being poured in cement. They used a small machine to mix the cement. Everything has to be carried up the hill by the workers or by mules. There are four mules that have been taking the gravel and the sand up the hill. The whole structure will be reinforced concrete. The men carry the prepared cement in wheelbarrows up the incline and pour it where needed. Machinery is available but it is too costly for us. There are about twenty to thirty men working on the site. When a floor is poured women in the barrio prepare a lunch “sancocho” (a type of stew) for the workers. At the moment our funds will cover this first building. It will house a community store (with a program which sells basic food at cost to the poor), a dining room for about 100 to 200 children who will be served breakfast and lunch from Monday to Saturday, and several multi-use rooms. One room is being equipped for a future workshop. We hope to put the whole area at the service of the poor and needy. Once this first structure is finished we hope to begin building the second building on the hill which will be the church. The roof of the first building will be part of the plaza in front of the church.”