Piet Korse is a Mill Hill missionary with vast experience of missionary involvement in DR Congo and Uganda. A keen interest in local cultures, traditional religion and spirituality have led him to publish personal in-depth research and original reflections in a host of articles and book-length publications.
To date he has more than forty books to his name.
‘Out of Sight’ is his latest publication which received a glowing tribute from eminent theologian and former Mill Hill missionary, John Wijngaards: Thank you for your book ‘Out of Sight; about Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei which I received a few days ago. I have read it from A to Z. Congratulations! A masterpiece!
In the introduction to this moving and well-informed account of the Mill Hill Missionaries in East Malaysia in times of great suffering and hardship Piet Korse writes:
“The Mill Hill Congregation has taught and nurtured me for more than seventy years. However, she never told me about the plight of more than thirty Mill Hill Missionaries who suffered in a Japanese labour camp for two and a half years on Borneo island from May 1942 until September 1945. Fr. Stephen Giles was so kind to give me the narratives of the Dutch missionaries about how they were arrested, locked up and treated by the Japanese army during World War II. I translated parts of their stories into English. The stories had been as it were incarcerated for nearly eighty years. They had been lying in the archives gathering dust out of sight. Hence the title of this publication: Out of sight.
The same holds good for the local cultures with their amazing cultures. Regional, national and international languages threaten the very existence of hardly known and often undocumented local languages. These unregistered human cultures with their riches, they too tend to disappear out of sight.“
The Mill Hill missionaries have been in Borneo for many years. The first ones arrived in Kuching on 10th July 1881. They came to preach the Good News. This preaching took many forms. The missionaries faced another culture. They experienced peace, war, a Japanese concentration camp, expulsions, mission accomplished by sowing in tears and by harvesting in joy. In this script, you read it all: one window ajar on a rich local culture, another window open on two and a half years stay in the Japanese Batu Lintang camp. I have translated many letters written by Dutch Mill Hill missionariesafter their ordeal in the Kuching camp in order to make a wider public aware of a more or less forgotten historic painful period. They are heroes by their perseverance, their mutual assistance, their prayerful presence in a world of torment and torture. Once the Japanese army was defeated, Sisters, Brothers and Priests returned to their parishes, to their medical work and their schools. Amazingly the missionaries did not give up, but continued the work which they had been forced to abandon two and a half years earlier (May 1942 – September 1945).
“As missionaries we live in a world marked by confusion, disappointment, frustration, torn by numerous wars that unjustly target the innocent. Our Mill Hill Missionaries find themselves in tough situations around the world continuing our normal socio-pastoral apostolates as much as possible. It is this commitment to stay close to the people and walk with them even if it is risky that gives me a sense that “we are on the right track”. There is very much a passion and a fire glowing in our hearts. With all our vulnerability, we as missionaries are trying to serve. This surely is a huge sign of hope” (Father Michael Corcoran.18th march 2024).
