Proficiency in an Asian language is encouraged, but not required. Several of our mission regions require only English to serve as a missionary. However, our formation program provides an Asian language component due to the importance of having made the effort to communicate in the native tongue of the people whom we are serving.

Generally speaking, yes. However, as part of the discernment process, our mission takes into consideration your personal background, linguistic ability, multicultural encounters, travel experience, exposure to poverty and developing world conditions, as well as the needs of the mission to discern together with you the best fit.

It costs approximately $25,000-30,000 USD / year to form, send, and support a qualified lay missionary to serve in Asia. Through our mission’s own efforts and the gracious generosity of our benefactors, we are able to cover the majority of these costs. Deo gratias!

However, there is a fundraising component our missionaries are expected to carry out during their service with us to help them better understand the entire “farm to table” experience of missionary work, and to invite those in their midst back home to a deeper understanding of their role in supporting the missionary work of the Church.

This is, in a sense, your first mission: helping those within your family, social circles, and faith community understand the importance and urgency of mission in the world today and the salvific role that their prayer and financial resources can offer for your mission to flourish.

If you would like to help support the work of our mission and help sponsor our missionaries, please visit our support page.

Going somewhere to volunteer for just a few days or weeks is frequently misunderstood or misconstrued as “going on mission.” Such short volunteer trips to a foreign culture for charitable purposes is most accurately described as a service or immersion trip.

The principal purpose for such trips is the spiritual growth and personal experience of the person or group going even though a good service may be an additional fruit and the ostensible reason for their time in a foreign culture. Even with this understanding, great care must be taken. Done improperly, harm can often result to the receiving culture as well as the persons going. This is especially true when done, intentionally or not, from the illusory perspective of “white man’s burden,” as is sadly still quite common even among well-meaning Christian organizations.

Nevertheless, such service or immersion trips can greatly benefit the spiritual growth and personal maturity of the volunteer and, when done in a culturally sensitive and responsible manner, is encouraged. The opening up of oneself to a culture, people, and tradition vastly different from one’s own is a great opportunity for personal growth! There is much to be gained by participating in such cross-cultural service opportunities with a spirit of humility and love. But they should not be mistaken for being mission trips.

As a sister once reminded a foreign volunteer, “Calcutta doesn’t need you. You need Calcutta.”

Mission is built on authentic relationships that take time to foster and a real commitment to serve the people and culture with openness, humility, and love, such that the Holy Spirit can truly have a strong and lasting impact on everyone involved.

That being said, if you are interested in doing a Come & See to visit one of our missions and experience some of missionary life, you are most welcome to contact our Vocations Director at vocations@laymissionary.org to further your discernment into the mission field. Moreover if you are interested in short-term international service opportunities or pilgrimages to Asia, we are happy to provide a consultation for you or your faith community.

Our mission takes as our patron Saint Francis Xavier, who is the patron saint of all missionaries around the world. Moreover, this man, often considered the greatest missionary since Saint Paul, joyfully served in many of the same mission regions in Asia as we do today.

In terms of our spirituality, we benefit from the many riches of the Catholic spiritual tradition, including that of Ignatian spirituality for which the Jesuits are best known. However, in terms of our missionary formation and spiritual support, we are greatly blessed to find our closest fraternity with the friars of the Western Dominican Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.

In the mission field, we have worked with many religious congregations over the years, including the Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Missionaries of Charity, Claretians, Maryknolls, and others, including collaborations with our Protestant brethren.

Our mission is principally based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are canonically located in the Diocese of San Jose where enjoy the blessing of Bishop Oscar Cantú. Our mission has also received the blessing of numerous other bishops to serve in their respective dioceses throughout the world.

While our mission has received gracious support from various bishops around the world, as a Catholic lay missionary apostolate currently we do not receive any direct financial assistance from the institutional Church.

In order to continue to serve effectively as a mission, we rely on the mystical Body of Christ as the Church to provide for our material needs. It’s a very special way to be a part of the mission. Over the years we have been blessed to receive financial support from priests, religious, Byzantine monks, laity both Catholic and Protestant, and even non-Christians who believe in the work and calling of our mission.

Would you like to join them in sharing Christ in Asia?

If you would like to help support the work of our mission, please donate here.

Yes! For those who don’t have a call cross-culturally to the mission field, we have several domestic ministries and ways to be involved with our mission and share Christ with others.

• Speaking Engagements

• Confraternity of Evangelization

• Campus Outreach

• Administrative Support