St. Luke Seok-du Hwang
Foreign Missionary Society
"Let's save even one life!"
"Let's save even one soul!"
In an era where the disregard for life is widespread, we are training and educating missionaries. Then, we assign and support them to proclaim the Gospel in Asia and northern regions of Asia in order to save even one life and soul. We consecrate ourselves to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, and go to Jesus through the lives of prayer, sacrifice, and penance just like.
"You will be our joy and our gladness" (Song of Songs 1:4)
The Society's Brotherhood, Sisterhood, and Marian Apostolate(Third Order) are interconnected like the Holy Trinity. We work together with one heart and one mind towards the goal of evangelization.
Our Story
Our Beginning (Mission)
St. Luke Seok-du Hwang Foreign Missionary Society (MHL) is a society of Apostolic Life, belonging to the Diocese of Cheong-ju. The founder is Fr. John Bosco Kim Dong-il. When he was a seminarian in the 1970s, he observed that many souls in rural and neglected areas were dying because of the lack of catechists who could teach them the Word of God.
After his ordination in 1977, he soon began preparing to train catechists in order to save even one soul. In 1981, in his first parish, he now started training missionaries while educating the lay people, who were interested in the missionary works in isolated areas, and assigning them as catechists.
In the chapels of ease and communities where Catholics felt spiritual thirst for no one could teach the Word of God, the missionaries were sent and led Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest, activated basic Ecclesial communities, and taught catechism for catechumen. They also revived Sunday school and taught Catholics and the members of Legion of Mary.
The missionaries saw the believers rejoicing finding the true meaning of faith by praying three times a week and studying catechism. And it made their spirits risen for they just attended a Sunday mass before. Moreover, as the number of aspirants increased one after another, the missionaries were able to start living a community life in the house rent by a Catholic at Sa-gic dong, Cheong-ju city, in 1986.
Life Protection
We have seen people making light of life since 1980s. As a result, we ran “Jamowon”(meaning the house of the merciful mother) in order to save even one life. In addition, we raised some disabled children including Guwon in order to raise even one life in a time where people abandon even their child because s/he is disabled or deformed.
Since 1995, in order to save and respect life in a more active way than just running a center to protect single mothers, we operated <sex and life education> to students in schools and groups. On Feb. 23, 2012, “All Life Cultural Center” was registered in the Ministry of Gender Equality as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) and are active as a lay apostolic organization in the Diocese of Cheong-ju. Moreover, now, we are helping women in a blind spot and the multicultural family overcome their difficulties.
Foreign Mission
The Church of Korea, grown through peculiar dispensation, had a lot of help from foreign missionaries. Therefore, in recompense for it, we, MHL, have operated the social welfare institutes as the Asian missionary works especially in the counties where there is no freedom of faith like China, Vietnam and so on while preparing to proclaim the Gospel. In the Philippines, for example, we opened the house of Stella, a small center for kids. It is built to produce good Christians. Besides, we formed and sent missionaries to Taiwan and Indonesia.