New Guinea Islands

Lasallian Identity – My Mission By Janet Wau, Buka, AROB

When my bosses (Mr. Paul Harricknen and Mrs. Hellen Harricknen) gave me that offer to work in their newly established school, I took it on board without hesitation for I already knew, it was a Lasallian Mission.

My journey is a freedom of exercising my Lasallian Spiritualty to execute the Lasallian Mission: Give basic Christian Education to the young ones, evangelize and bring salvation to the marginalized, by touching hearts, teaching minds and transforming lives. My bosses with all their trust, have given me the whole responsibility to build the school, a Catholic school and so as I have the opportunity, trying my best to make it a Lasallian School.

Our new school is Muana St. Joseph the Worker School. It is a small private Catholic school ranging from Early Learning to Primary. We have 78 children. There are two teachers, including myself, and four classroom assistants. We are doing multi-grade teaching. My other colleague, Ms. Jennifer Turagei is the cluster leader for the school and she is teaching preschool, kinder garden, and prep while I am teaching grades one, two and three. We have two CA’s for each class. Ms Turagei is in charge of Administration, while I am in charge of Academics, including Curriculum and Professional Development, apart from coordinating the Christian Religious Education Program in school. My colleague and I also take an active role in extracurricular duties where we also involve ourselves with the youths and the surrounding communities.

Wearing too many hats is very challenging, but I am so delighted and full of enthusiasm in everything I do because I am driven by my passion. With faith and zeal, I can do extraordinary things, and so far, I have run CRE programs, in-service, retreats and meetings, all in a Lasallian way.

We are so fortunate to have a small chapel (St. Joseph the Worker Chapel) where we have school Mass once in a month, and we use it to run other CRE activities.

In term one, we have showcased an Easter play, ‘The Passion of Christ, Death and Resurrection’ (English Version). Early this term, we celebrated St. Joseph the Worker Feast Day. I ran a Novena of St. Joseph in parallel with the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph. The feast day took us to the Holy Rosary month, so we have observed it by praying our rosary every morning. Our spiritual journey didn’t end there. This month is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so we are working on the theme ‘Love and Compassion’. After all, it’s the foundation that we are trying to set up based on the Catholic faith. It will then become a School Culture, the School Spirituality and of course the Lasallian Spirituality. I always make sure the CRE programs are effectively carried out, and so far, so good. The children already know some of the common Catholic prayers. In term four, we have planned for the International Teachers’ Day, looking at St. John Baptist de LaSalle. At the end of this year all children should know all the common Catholic prayers, the Mass responses in English, and live the Spiritualty of St. Joseph and St. John Baptist De LaSalle.

We run all CRE programs using Christian Living periods. Other subjects are treated as per their periods. I am so blessed to see how God is at work, and of course how amazing is this simple prayer – “Let us remember that we are in the most holy presence of God!” …... I call it ‘magic’. We may be doing little, but I have seen a lot of things, and I thank St. Joseph and St. John Baptist de LaSalle for leading us thus far.

Live Jesus in our hearts, forever!