Columban missionary Fr Tanvir O’Hanlon invited me to work with the Columbans for the promotion of mission in our local church. He said to me, “We have this gift of mission and we want to give it to the people of Pakistan.” That was in 2007 when I had recently completed a four year contract in a pastoral institute dedicated to the formation of religion teachers.
However, the story of my faith journey began about 30 years ago when I was in my early twenties. For two years I trained to be a catechist and then the De La Salle Brothers decided to send me to the Urbaniana University in Rome for further studies.
On my return from Rome I took up a teaching post at the Pakistan national catechists’ training center in Faisalabad. My life there was one of books, classes, correcting assignments and so on. I was happy in my work and in my home life, but then in 1996, ten years after I had begun teaching, tragedy struck. My wife, who was only 28 years of age, died. We had three children, the eldest a boy (eight years), then a girl (six years) and a boy (four years).
I stopped teaching and did nothing for six months. I grieved and wondered how this could fit into God’s plan for me. I felt so broken and did not understand what God wanted of me. I did not know where my life was headed and I could not simply return to teaching in the institute for catechists.
Then a priest friend, Fr Emmanuel Asi, opened a door for me and I walked through it into a new life. He invited me to coordinate a newly established theological institute for laity – The School of Thought of the Poor. The new institute’s work was not done primarily in the classroom but in direct contact with lay men, women and children at the grassroots of our local church. I realized that this work with laity was God’s will for me. 
My brokenness prepared me to go with people, to be with them in a common search for our way in life. I reflected anew and my reflection was fresh. As I got into the job I came to appreciate the fertility of my pain.
Our priority was fostering the life of Christian communities, forming laity for mission, and developing a network among the theology groups we formed. I was doing all this under the directorship of Fr Asi but when he moved on and another person took over he destroyed everything we had been doing. It seems to me the church leaders want the institution of the Church to be a priority in itself.
In contrast, we focused on the everyday lives of ordinary lay people. What does the Word of God have to say to what we are living? What is God calling us to in our daily lives? How might we build a more harmonious, inclusive and just society?
Our basic inspiration was the opening lines of Vatican II’s great document, 'Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World' (Gaudium et Spes), Promulgated by Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1965: “The joys and the hopes, the grief and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the grief and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
I was totally changed by the task I had taken on. I was no longer preparing and teaching class but rather reflecting and sharing my faith with other lay men and women. I learned to express myself in the language of everyday life, to listen carefully to the reflections of others and I soon discovered the mystical depth in so many of the people with whom I was working.
In fact, I began to realize my potential as I moved more and more into dialogue rather than being the one who knew and explained things to others. We had moved beyond catechesis, the task of communicating the essentials of our Christian faith, to theologizing, the task of reflecting creatively on the implications of the Word of God for our lives and for our planet earth and with which we give shape to our lives.
And so I then came to the next stage of my missionary adventure, this time with the Columban missionaries. I had come to understand that we do not necessarily see the fruits of our mission, but rather our calling is to die as a seed of mission.
With this in mind, I began to collaborate with Colulmban Fr Tanvir in a mission exchange program, in which one parish community in the city of Lahore sent missionaries to another community in the Sindh province and the parish in Sindh reciprocated. We had sown the seed of this exchange in Bible study groups that we run every evening in various parish centers.
In our culture we are considered “People of the Book,” so we readily discern the will or call of God in our reflection on Bible texts. Once we have chosen those we wish to send we give them an intensive preparation before they go on their two to three week missionary journey.
On arrival at their destination our missionaries are welcomed into the homes of the families with whom they will stay. Over the course of their time on mission they share their faith story with their hosts. This is a cross cultural experience even though all participating in the programme are Pakistanis.
On returning to their home parish our missionaries share with their friends how the experience has changed them. The day of departure the missionary group is given a public send-off at the end of Mass in the presence of the whole community so they have a sense of being sent by the community, not just by the priest.
It is a great experience for both sides when grassroots parishioners can recognize and say, “We are missionary.” They had thought that only the foreigner is missionary.
As we locals own that same calling, we change our awareness of who we are as Christians.
Mushtaq Asad works with the Columban missionaries in Pakistan.
Read more from The Far East, October 2016