Vincent Kochamkunnel
365 TESTIMONIES OF HOSPITALITY |
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Vincent Kochamkunnel |
At the time of writing this Vocational Testimony I was studying for a Batchelor’s degree in theology at the Catholic Institute of Sydney (Australia). This period of study in my life was a form of ‘sabbatical’ after I left Rome at the end of my two-term service as a General Councillor of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God. When I entered the Order in India many years ago I expected to live out my Hospitaller Vocation within the life and services of, what is now, the Indian Province of the Order. With that in view I went to Austria and graduated there as a general nurse. Back in India I was asked to participate in various offices in the leadership of our Hospitaller Brotherhood. Then in 2000 I was elected a General Councillor and in that capacity assisted two Priors General – Brother Pascual Piles and Brother Donatus Forkan. In this testimony I want to convey from my experience of visiting and observing the Order in many countries that the Hospitaller Vocation that so many Brothers and Co-workers have responded to has bettered the lives of countless thousands of people who were afflicted by poverty, sickness and various disabilities in more than 50 countries of the world. The services that the Hospitaller Vocation makes possible range from large general hospitals, through long-term care facilities and psychiatric services, to centers for persons who are disabled in some way, to small rural health centres in remote areas of the world.