They sailed ‘to the end of the earth’, half-way round the globe, to bring the Good News to the islanders of the Moluccas and the Solor-Archipelago. They did not understand the languages and customs of the people. They had hardly any information on the people, the geography or the existing living conditions. They had to find out for themselves, not knowing whether the ways they used were right or wrong. Missionaries had never reached as far as this before. They often suffered shipwreck, persecution, hunger and fatigue. Many of them died early, some poisoned, others tortured. They wrote interesting letters about their experiences, which were sensational in Europe, but they had to wait for months and months to get a reply. They felt lost, but did not give up until they were forcibly expelled. They spent all their energy on helping the faithful they had won for Christ. In the end the harvest was small, and what they had achieved was destroyed by their Christian enemies who looked, not for souls but for spices and sandalwood.
This book tells the history of the first mission in Asia started by St. Francis Xavier (1546), and by the Goanese Dominicans, who for decades had to rely completely on their own resources against the mighty Dutch East-India Company. They founded the earliest Catholic communities still existing in South-Eastern Indonesia.