In the quiet, pre-dawn shadows of the Gulf of Thailand, 2,300 runners gathered at the starting line of Hua Hin Vitthayalai School last week.
As the morning sun rose over the horizon, participants crossed the finish line of a running event, marking the approach of a historic milestone: 100 years of Salesian presence in Thailand.
The inaugural running event, themed “Run Toward 100 Years of the Salesians,” serves as a precursor to the 2027 centenary.
The celebration recalls a mission that began in 1927, when the first disciples of St. John Bosco arrived in the riverside district of Bang Nok Khwaek in Ratchaburi province, west of Bangkok.
From that modest beginning grew a network of schools, technical institutes, and pastoral centers across the Salesian Province of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos (THA).
Legacy of formation
The event was more than a sporting activity. It also reflected the long presence of Salesian education in Hua Hin, where Hua Hin Vitthayalai School has served the local community for nearly eight decades.
Father Boonlert Paneetatthayasai, SDB, presided over the opening ceremony. He said the race symbolized the Salesian journey marked by perseverance, joy, and the patient accompaniment of young people.
The running event offered three distances, including a 3km family run intended to nurture the “family spirit” that lies at the heart of Salesian preventive education.
In a sign of the Salesian mission’s international reach, Father Pascual Chávez Villanueva, SDB, presented the 10km championship trophies to an English couple who joined alumni, students, teachers, and local residents in the race.
Missionary impulse: From Ivrea to Siam
Photo credit: Salesian Thailand
The roots of the Thai mission can be traced to Blessed Philip Rinaldi, the third successor of Don Bosco. In the early 1920s, amid growing missionary enthusiasm recorded in the Salesian Bulletin, Fr. Rinaldi founded the Cardinal Cagliero Institute in Ivrea, Italy, to prepare future missionaries.
When Don Bosco died in 1888, the Salesian Congregation numbered about 773 members. By the 1920s, however, the congregation had expanded rapidly and was sending missionaries across Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
To support this effort, the Salesian Missions Institute was canonically established on Jan. 13, 1924, to coordinate the formation and deployment of missionaries.
“Young people from many of our colleges and festive oratories have already become fervent apostles,” Fr. Rinaldi wrote in June 1924. “By dint of begging for the Missions, some young people end up giving themselves as well and becoming Salesian missionaries.”
A Triennium of preparation
The Hua Hin running event forms part of a three-year preparation period launched by the THA Province on Sept. 7, 2024, at Don Bosco Technological College in Bangkok.
The opening celebration gathered about 500 members of the Salesian Family. During the event, the Provincial Superior encouraged the community to prepare for the centenary through a simple but demanding path to holiness: “do your duty well.”
The preparation years also recall the “Childhood Dream” of Don Bosco and the pioneering missionaries who crossed cultural and geographic frontiers to establish schools and technical institutes that later became pillars of Thai society.
From the first mission in Ratchaburi to technical colleges in Bangkok and other provinces, and to the classrooms of Hua Hin by the sea, the centenary invites reflection not only on the past but also on the future.
For the Salesians in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, the approaching anniversary renews their commitment to the formation of young people, especially those on the margins, and to the holistic development of the next generation.
