Knocked out by Marists

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
22 February 2004

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Theology of Body

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Census data

‘Quiet revolution in our school buildings’

‘Outstanding’ approach to teaching

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Pregnant pause: First all-night ‘wake up’ call of baby acrobatics

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Editorial: Value for money

Letters: Confession

Conversation: Fr Con Keogh, honoured for helping people rehabilitate themselves - ‘Insane’ priest who draws others to God

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St Joseph’s – a happy partnership where ‘everyone is bubbling over’

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Knocked out by Marists

Obituary: Capuchin Fr Ted gave up farming and shearing for a ‘late’ vocation

Obituary: Fr Colin, Renaissance man

... mud, sweat and gears? Crazy!

Riverview’s ‘Big Bird’

Knocked out by Marists

WORLD CHAMPION: Br Visesio Teugasiale hung up his gloves to join Marists

By Marilyn Rodrigues

As a young man coming to the end of his military service, Visesio Teugasiale had to make a decision about his future.

Should he devote himself to boxing, set up a business or find a girl to marry?

Further down his list was becoming a Marist Brother. It was a call he put off until he found himself alone in the barracks one night, asking Our Lady for guidance.

He found his vocation. Now, based in Papua New Guinea, he needs assistance to realise his dream of helping young men who are at a loose end to get a trade.

Visesio, now 58, was the fourth of of five children born to parents Mary and Joseph, on the South Pacific island of Wallis.

Since he was nine or 10 he had harboured a desire to be a Marist, so impressed was he by those he knew, especially a Br Sonemalia.

Visesio left home for New Caledonia to find work when he was 17. He worked in a nickel mine and took on odd jobs in his free time as well so he could send money home to help his family.

But whenever he went to Mass he would think of his first desire.

“I would say: ‘Lord, I want to be a brother, but not now’,” he says.

When he was 19, Visesio saw a newspaper advertisement asking for volunteers for the French Army (Wallis, like New Caledonia, is an overseas territory of France). He had to pass an exam in French and a physical examination.

“I asked Mary to please help me,” he says. “I said: ‘I want to go to France, not only to do my military service, but to go to Lourdes. If I get to France I will come and visit you there.’

“So I passed, with my friend. We went to the military preparation college in Paris for 1½ years. I learnt mechanics and tiling.”

Visesio enjoyed the army, he enjoyed his work and developed a love of boxing.

He visited Lourdes with his army unit, which made an annual three-day pilgrimage there, and arranged for some leave so that he could spend a few days there alone.

Five months before the end of their military service the young men had to apply for a permanent army career or make other plans.

“So one night. when everybody went out, I stayed alone,” says Br Visesio.

“I lay on my bed, reflecting. I said: ‘Oh Mary, when I finish my military service I will be an adult. I have to do something with my life now. What will I do?’

“I was so interested in boxing I thought I will stay here and learn more about it. I imagined being a world champion and hearing my name on the radio.

“But then I thought: ‘What’s that all about? Pride. And, when I die, what’s the use of that?

No. That’s not my vocation.’

“Then I thought I could go to New Caledonia and work hard for three years to get enough money to start a business at home. I could be Wallis’s first millionaire.

“That was good if I could help people that way.

“But maybe I would have to be unfair sometimes by selling things expensively to make a profit, and Wallis is very poor.

“Then I said: ‘I’ll go back and find a girl with the same attitudes as me to marry and we’ll have a good Christian family. Surely God will bless that.’

“But I thought: ‘That’s not my vocation, either. I won’t have peace in my heart.’

“Then I remembered my original idea to work for God and the Church and how I had wanted to wait.

“I prayed: ‘I know God you are good and forgiving, and I want to be a brother to follow you and work for you and your Church. This is my vocation’.”

Visesio was 22 when he entered the Marist novitiate in New Caledonia. He took vows on February 2, 1969.

Since then he has worked in missions in New Caledonia, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands and – for the past 11 years – Papua New Guinea in building and teaching mechanics and carpentry.

He speaks Wallisian, French, Tongan, English and pidgin English (Tok Pisin).

Br Visesio worked with young men in the Marist-administered parish of Koje, in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, teaching them to build houses for the villagers.

“I was very surprised by the people when I got there,” he recalls.

“Their houses were small, made with bush materials.

“They were afraid to build houses because when trouble comes people might burn their house.

“I said to the youth: ‘If you have a good, permanent house, you will look after it well and you won’t think about fighting. If you get involved in the troubles, people will come and burn your house. It’s better to build a good house; your children will grow up healthier and develop their lives,’ I told them.

“One of the youth said they had a broken walkabout saw mill in the village that had just been lying in the bush for years.

“I said: ‘Can we go and get it? I can repair it.’

“So we built the first house with a proper roof in the village.”

Br Visesio has spent the past six years in Bougainville, where he has been working for the Bougainville diocese as a co-ordinator of building projects.

On his return from holiday in Sydney, he plans to build a carpentry workshop to train young men eager to learn a trade.

For two years the verandah of the Marist house in Bougainville has served as a makeshift workshop for about 10 young men under Br Visesio’s guidance.

“More boys want to join us, but they can’t because we have started badly, so when I go back we will set up properly,” he says. “We have some money to build a workshop but we haven’t got all the tools we need.”

The young men Br Visesio is helping are aged 14 to 23. They have had very limited schooling and opportunities, and Br Visesio wants to keep them from the rascals, roaming gangs of young people that plague Papua New Guinea.

“They are willing to learn and to work,” he says.

“My dream is to start a small workshop with maybe 10 to 15 boys and train them. Then if we are going well, to contact the government of Bougainville and start a properly registered vocational school.”

Br Visesio lacks a few vital tools to equip his workshop and welcomes donations to help him supply them.

He wants to buy a radial arm electric saw, a half-inch electric hand drill and an electric grinder and estimates that he needs $2000-$2500 to do so.

Anyone interested in helping Br Visesio get started may contact Fr Ron Nissen, director of the Marist Mission Centre, 3 Mary St, Hunters Hill NSW 2110. Email: maristmissions@ozemail.com.au or phone 9816 3187.