Catholic priest climbs into manholes to minister to Mongolian poor

By DIANNE HARDISTY , from the Bakersfield Californian

Crouched beneath a steam pipe in an underground vault, a dirt-caked homeless man confessed to a Catholic priest that his life was hopeless.

Just released from prison, the man lacks necessary work papers and cannot get a job. He and his wife are living in a manhole they share with two other men because it is the only way they can keep from freezing to death.

Once you move to the manholes, you have no hope, he explained. Life becomes empty, hopeless and dark. There is no future. Ulaanbaatar's homeless steal and scrounge food during the day. They scurry like rats into the manholes at night.

Coal-burning steam generating plants crank out heat thatflows through underground pipes into the apartments andbuildings in Mongolia's capital city of 800,000 people.

Scattered along the pipelines are manholes and underground maintenance vaults that workers use to gain access to the heating system. The manholes also provide shelter to the thousands of homeless men, women and children seeking refuge from winter temperatures that sometimes dip to minus 50 degrees.

On Wednesday nights, the Rev. Gilbert Sales, an Immaculate Heart of Mary missionary, climbs down Ulaanbaatar's manholes to bring food and compassion to the desperate underground world.

The poor, homeless and unemployed in this former Soviet backwater are growing in number as Mongolia struggles to rebuild its economy and government after the collapse and withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1990.   Financially subsidized and controlled by the Soviets for seven decades, Mongolia's agricultural and factory production collapsed with the Soviet's economy.

Mongolians turned to the world of nations for help. Among those they contacted was the Vatican, which dispatched a handful of missionaries, including Sales, in 1993 to this predominantly Buddhist nation.

"The Catholic Church has become known for its work herewith the street people," Sales said. "It is a very powerfulwitness."

The missionaries began first with the homeless children who knocked on their Ulaanbaatar apartment doors. Gaining the children's confidence, the priests were sooninvited into the manholes, where the children hid. The priests began collecting the children from the streets -- at first 15 and then 40. They built a four-story center that now houses 120 children and also feeds and cares for homeless adults.

Every Wednesday evening, Sales, a kind-hearted priest from the Philippines, who volunteered for assignment in Mongolia, returns to the manholes looking for children who are fleeing abusive homes or who have been abandoned by their families.

"When a child is there more than six months, chances arethey will stay," he said, explaining his weekly visits. "Theybegin to enjoy the freedom of the streets."

 Hardened street dwellers likely will not adapt to the routine at the Verbist Care Center, where children sleep on tiny bunk beds that line the dormitory rooms; eat in a large dining hall; dress and bathe together; and devote their evenings to doing homework, reading and playing games.  It is structured. It is safe.

A staff of 30, including the 39-year-old priest, dispenses hugs and love to the children. But, Sales insists all the children at the center attend school and develop job skills so they can break from their cycle of poverty. If they refuse, they leave.

Life After the Manhole - photo gallery

  Four girls Sales rescued from the manholes have done so well in school that they are ready to graduate and want to attend the university. Two want to be teachers, one a lawyer and one a doctor. Sales has promised the girls he will find the money somehow to continue their educations. His vision is to have his former street children return and help run the center.

What Sales is finding on his weekly trips to the manholes is an increasing number of jobless and homeless adults, who he said now outnumber the children by many times.

Government officials estimate the number of children living in Mongolia's manholes is 4,000. No estimate is made for the number of adults. Often these are displaced herdsmen and former factory workers who pour into Ulaanbaatar from the countryside hoping to find jobs. Instead they find misery.

And with them often sit their families -- wives and young children. Hoping to protect their children from the crime, sexually transmitted diseases, illnesses and hunger that are prevalent in the manholes, many parents have placed their children in Sales' care.

"We are taking in the most vulnerable children and girls," said Sales, who explained the children at the Verbist Care Center continue to see their parents during regular visitsand weekend trips "home" to the manholes.       The Rev. Gilbert Sales, an Immaculate Heart of Mary missionary, can be reached by e-mail about his work at cicmgibs@magicnet.mn

Copyright© 2001, The Bakersfield Californian; published with permission of Dianne Hardisty, Bakersfield Californian

Photography by Gilbert Sales, cicm 

CICM MISSIONARIES HOME PAGE