BY Fr Edgardo A. Vizcarra MCCJ | Administrator

I am Fr Edgardo A. Vizcarra, MCCJ, a Comboni Missionary ordained on 18th September 2004. I spent my 21 years as a missionary in Comboni mission areas and ministries, both here in South Africa and in the Philippines. My first mission experience was in the Province of Mpumalanga among the Tsonga people (Bushbuckridge and Acornhoek), and coming back for the second time here in the country as part of the Mahube Valley community ministering to the catholic community of St Eugene de Masenod in Refilwe, a township in the nearby Cullinan, a mining area. Few years after, I was assigned as priest in charge of St. Augustine Parish in Silverton, Pretoria and the administrator of Comboni Media Centre until I left for the Philippines where I worked as a hospital chaplain in Manila for some years and form part of the pioneers in our new Comboni presence in the Diocese of Balanga, province of Bataan until I came back to South Africa for the third time I ministered in St Daniel Comboni Parish, Mahube Valley, Mamelodi for a year until I moved back to Comboni Media Centre as its administrator and part of the new formation community of the postulancy of the Comboni Missionaries.

BY Gladwin Ntokozo Mboane | Assistant Administrator

I started work with the Combonis in October 2001, working initially with Fr Fabio Baldan, having been recommended by my then parish priest, the late Fr Luis Carranza. My deepest gratitude to him. Throughout the years, I have worked with all the editors and administrators of Worldwide, except the founding editor, Fr Anton Pramstrahler, who, incidentally, was my parish priest when I was younger. Initially, I was employed temporarily as a secretary until 2012, when I became a permanent employee.

My duties then included some clerical work, such as filing important documents, cataloguing photos, database keeping, receiving and processing calendar orders, and a few other duties. Chief amongst my duties was corresponding with our subscribers through whatever means available at the time, including the no-longer so popular postal letter.

Through the passage of time, I have experienced the evolution of the magazine and gained so much invaluable experience in the media space. But, most importantly, I have gained many friends and my life was enriched in a way that it would not have, anywhere else.

This year will mark 24 years of work at Comboni Media Centre and perhaps a few more, God willing and circumstances permitting.

BY Fr Rafael Armada MCCJ | Editor

I am a Comboni Missionary priest originally from Madrid, Spain. I was ordained on 30th June 2001, and I came to South Africa in September that same year. I worked for eight years in the Parish of the Holy Family (Waterval), Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga. In 2009, I returned to Spain, where I was requested to study journalism and to work in the Comboni magazine Mundo Negro.

In 2016, after a sabbatical course in Rome, I returned to South Africa, where I worked for three years in Maria Trost Pastoral Centre and the last of them also in the parish of Sacred Heart/St Teresa, in Lydenburg, Mpumalanga.

After less than one year back in Waterval, I was caught in the COVID lockdown in Spain. Fr Jude Burgers, then Provincial Superior in South Africa, asked me to take over Worldwide since Fr Rebelo had already left South Africa. My first issue as editor, October/ November 2020, was produced in Madrid and printed in South Africa. I held it in my hands when I landed in South Africa on the first flight available. I am grateful indeed to all readers, subscribers, contributors, layout artists, proofreaders, promoters, as well as the past and current teams in the Media Centre, who made it possible to produce each edition of the Worldwide and Liturgical calendar.