Way back in 1969 I came to Ledalero, the major seminary of the Divine Word Missionaries, in Flores, Indonesia. I was a seminarian, coming to study theology and preparing for priesthood. I was ordained in early 1973, and then worked for about 3 years on a small island in the Flores Sea called Palue. 

In 1976, I returned to Australia, taking-on a number of jobs in the following years in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga. Then, when my second term as parish priest of Sacred Heart Parish, Preston, in Victoria, was coming to an end, I accepted an invitation to return to Ledalero.