This year 2024, Rector Major of Salesians of Don Bosco, has a good news for Mongolia: He is about to sent two new missionaries here soon. We prepared a brief interview with br. Eric, who is one the one of them.

1. Please, can you share with us about your family, your childhood and growing in faith?

I am Br. Eric Ndayicariye. I was born in Bujumbura archdiocese, Kirombwe parish; I am Burundian by nationality. There are nine children in our family, five boys and four girls. I am the seventh child. I come from a catholic family and my parents are still alive; I was baptized when I was two years old. At home, we have learnt Christian values since our childhood. As a Christian family, we are used to attending Sunday masses. From my childhood my father used to advise us to study well, for he did not have the chance to attend school: he was not happy about that and he did his utmost to put us in schools so that we could study. I was also given the chance to join the group of the altar servants in my parish and the “Chiro youth movement” from which I heard of Don Bosco.

2. Where did you meet the Salesians and Don Bosco? Why did you become a Salesian?

As I was an altar servant, I felt in my heart the call of becoming a priest one day. And at that time, I met a diocesan priest of my parish who came to celebrate the mass on Sunday. I served the mass and at the end of it, the priest, Father Celestin Ntirampeba, called me and asked my name and I told him that I would like to become like him. He welcomed me and he blessed me; it was in 2015 when I asked him to help me to join the minor seminary. He did it for me and that same year I went to continue my studies in the minor seminary of Kanyosha.

During break time, I was used to conversing with my fellow students and one day in 2017, one year before finishing my secondary school, I saw one seminarian coming to me and he took me aside telling me that he would like to talk to me. He said something that I was not used to hearing. He said: do you know the Salesians? I replied: Who are the Salesians? He gave me some information but when he saw that I was not convinced, he proposed to me to come to their home during the holidays when his elder brother, who was a Salesian, would be at home, so that he could tell me more about the salesian life. I agreed; when I met his elder brother, Willy Ndayishimiye, I became very interested in salesian life and I abandoned the desire of becoming a diocesan priest. I felt that God used that seminarian to lead me to the salesian vocation, the life which he prepared for me, because until that time I never heard about Salesians, and for that reason I did not aspire to become one of them; if nobody told me about the Salesians, how could I know them? When Br. Willy Ndayishimiye SDB shared with me about the salesian life, I was attracted by their dedication to prayer, living together as a family and their mission of saving the souls of the young people, especially the poorest.

3. What do you like and admire about Don Bosco?

From CHIRO I knew that Don Bosco is a friend of the young people; he was restless when he saw that young people were mistreated by society. He didn’t want to save only the young people of his country but the youth of the whole world. His mission was to educate by evangelizing and to evangelize by educating. Don Bosco became the friend of all the young people because he was a friend of Jesus Christ and of his Mother. His preventive system has made me love him very much; for me Don Bosco educates us to be like God who precedes us everywhere.

4. How did you find your missionary vocation? Why would you like to be a missionary?

I was convinced that to become a Salesian is to become a missionary because if I was called only to become a priest I would choose to become a diocesan priest. The missionary dimension burnt in my heart. when I saw how the missionaries who came to my country to preach the good news of Jesus Christ, sacrificed their life and left their family and their country because of their desire to make Jesus Christ known to all the nations. Now it is my time to do so. Whom I know, let him be known by others. It is the generous heart and love of the mission of Christ.

From the time I started to serve God as an altar servant, I was interested by the broadcasts of radio Maria. I heard there that there are some countries that until today do not yet know Jesus Christ and I said like saint Paul: woe to me if I do not announce the good news. I felt that Jesus was calling me to become a missionary of the nations.

The meeting with the Salesians was the beginning of my response to this call; before joining the Salesian congregation, I shared with my parents the desire of becoming a Salesian in order to go and make known the good news of Jesus Christ where is not known; my parents blessed me and wished me all the best.

Throughout my missionary discernment, I was devoted to the word of God, that is reading the Bible and I used to admire the faithfulness of Abraham from whom I saw that God has a plan for every person. I have to listen to God in order to do what he tells me and to go wherever he will send me.

5. Are you surprised that you are sent to Mongolia? What do you expect there?

I had not heard about Mongolia, but recently, by the visit of pope Francis and through the media I had become aware of the situation of the Catholic church in Mongolia, but I was not too surprised that I am sent there and I saw God’s will to make me a missionary where the catholic Church in general and the Salesian congregation in particular still need many missionaries.

I expect to be a missionary who is well integrated in the Mongolian culture, language, life and to offer Jesus Christ to the Mongolians; like Don Michael Rua, I wish to be Don Bosco in Mongolia.

6. What is your life motto (or a favorable verse from the Bible)?

When I saw that this vocation needs help from God, I chose this verse: My grace is sufficient for you. (2 Cor 12, 9).

7. Anything else you would like to add?

I want to express my gratitude to all those who have helped me in different ways in order to become who I am today. I finish by telling all the Christians that God needs us to become his missionary disciples.

God bless you all.