Over 500 attend blessing and opening of Hamin Tokou Potuki

POTUKI, Penampang – Over 500 people attended the blessing and opening of Hamin Tokou (Our Home) St Francis Xavier Orphanage Home here on 28 Nov 2016.

Archbishop John Wong officiated the rite of blessing while YB Tan Sri DSP Joseph Pairin Kitingan, Deputy Chief Minister cum Minister of Infrastructure and Development declared it open. Kitingan is also the patron of Hamin Tokou Sabah.

In his speech, the deputy chief minister assured the management association of the Hamin Tokou Orphanage Home Sabah under the chairmanship of Lawrence Jakil that he will do his best to see to the relocation of the village road that divides the  land to the boundary of the land so that future development projects may be undertaken without hindrance and for the safety of the future residents.

Present at the event were several members of the Clerical Society of the Most Holy Trinity of Mirinae South Korea including Rev General Liborius Park Hye Sik, local priests, religious sisters, representatives of Montfort Youth Training Centre Kinarut, and the Carmelite Seculars.  There were also visitors from Sibu, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

The home, run and financed by the Clerical Society was the brainchild of Fr Leo Choi Sangki, who saw the need to build a home for needy orphans in the state after serving  the Korean community here in the last ten years or so. He is the spiritual director, project consultant and architect of Hamin Tokou Sabah projects.

The home is named after St Francis Xavier, the patron of the missions, and Father Francis Xavier Tjeong, who founded  the society in 1976.

Initially, it was to be built first in Tambunan.  But as things turned out, Potuki became the site for the home after the management committee managed to obtain the two-acre land here with the consent of Abp Wong who saw it as part of God’s call to the South Korean clerical society.

Operations will begin towards the end of  2017.