Columban Fr Donald Hornsey has spent 40 of his 50 years of priestly life in Latin America, working in all three countries where the Columbans have or had a mission. He spoke with The Far East magazine.
Tell us about your missionary experience in Latin America?
I have been very fortunate to work 10 years in Chile, 17 years in Brazil and 13 years in Peru. After ordination in 1964 I was sent to Rome to study Theology and Liturgy. After that I became a member of the teaching staff at the Columban Seminary in Sydney for seven years.
From there, I went on to spend the next 40 years as a missionary to Latin America where for the first time I came face to face with people living in poverty. During these 40 years, I have always been impressed by the deep lifelong friendship which Latin American people offer you.
Your first experience was in Chile
After several months of Spanish language classes in Bolivia, I spent my first three years in a parish in the Archdiocese of Santiago in the Chilean capital. During that time my mother became ill and died. When I returned from her funeral in New Zealand I was met at the airport by a truck load of parish youth welcoming me back. When the Columbans decided to open a new mission in the far north of Chile in the Diocese of Arica, I volunteered along with two Scottish Columban priest associates.
On arrival the Bishop offered us a rather well-off parish which we decided not to accept. Soon after while walking around the city, a man yelled out to us from across the street, "go up there!" He pointed to a large shantytown on the side of the large hill that dominates the city of Arica.
As there was no church presence there and the people were very poor, we decided to take this area. We soon settled into our new home, our "masonite mansion," a shack similar to those of our neighbours.
My seven years in Arica coincided with the earlier years of Chile's oppressive military dictatorship. On one occasion when I joined our shantytown residents in a protest against the military dictatorship, an army truck arrived full of soldiers who soon formed a line in front of us pointing their rifles at us. Someone said to me, "Play a song on your guitar, Padre!" I replied, "I think it is more sensible for us to remain quiet." I was denounced in the local newspaper as a foreign agitator.
When the Columbans decided to open a new mission in Brazil in 1984, I placed my name on the list of volunteers even though I was very happy in Arica. A short time later, one night during a raid by the army on our shantytown, with a total black out and an army tank parked 20 metres away, I heard a loud knock at the door.
Thinking that the army had come to take me away for interrogation, I said to myself I am not going to hide, I will open the door. I opened it and heard a voice which said to me in Portuguese, "Welcome to Brazil, Padre". It was a Brazilian seminarian visiting Chile who somehow had heard from the Columbans before I did that I was to be appointed to Brazil. 
You then went to Brazil
We were divided into two groups. One group worked in the Archdiocese of Salvador on the north east coast of Brazil and the other group, which I joined, worked 1000kms inland in the Diocese of Barreiras.
For the first two years, I lived on the outskirts of the city of Cristopolis and rode a push bike 16kms a day to the town of Bainopolis. During the wet season the only way to get that bicycle up the steep muddy slopes was by walking backwards and pulling the mud caked bike behind me.
I later moved to Bainopolis, becoming the first resident priest there. There I spent eight years organizing the church in the surrounding townships into Christian communities. I shared the same diet of beans, rice and tapioca-root as the local subsistence farmers.
My last seven years in Brazil were spent working on the outskirts of the city of Barreiras. There I managed to change my diet on Sundays at least to boiled potatoes, a tin of peas and canned sardines.
You then moved to Peru after the Columbans decided to close the Brazilian mission
At the age of 63, I left the 40 degree night and day temperatures of Brazil for the night temperatures of 10 degrees below zero of the Peruvian Andes mountains. I joined my fellow New Zealander, Columban Fr Paul Prendergast, in Sicuani, a Quechua-speaking area at 3500 metres above sea level.
I now had to learn the language of the local indigenous people, "Quechua", in addition to my Spanish for Chile and Portuguese for Brazil.
In all of my time in Latin America, this was probably the place that suited me the most, due to my rural New Zealand background, my love of nature, my interest in indigenous cultures and my desire to work with and accompany the local subsistence Quechua farmers.
What are the main things you have learnt during your 40 years in Latin America?
The people of the Andes have taught me to pray in a contemplative manner. I believe it is because they spend the entire day up on the mountainside watching over their llamas and cattle and are close to nature.
Perhaps the busyness of many people in the western world creates an obstacle to seeing God in nature, in our lives and in others. In town, when the bank system breaks down, I go home trying to find something to make me busy. The local people wait patiently for the bank to reopen. One can learn so much from other cultures.
Columban Fr Donald Hornsey celebrates his 50 years of missionary priesthood this month.
Read more from The Far East, July 2014