MIVA and its founder Father Paul Schulte

MIVA – a strange name for “transport aid”. The abbreviation stands for: Motorisierende Innerdeutsche Verkehrs-Arbeitsgemeinschaft (motorising inner-German transport consortium) and was launched by Father Paul Schulte, known as “the Flying Father”. Perhaps some readers still remember the Oblate father with the white scarf made from parachute silk, who founded the MIVA of the mission as early as 1927. At the time his friend and confrere, Father Otto Fuhrmann, had died in Africa of a severe fever. The missionary could have been helped with the aid of a modern vehicle. The death of his friend was the stimulus for the life’s work of the Oblate-Father Schulte. He was abuzz with the idea of motorising the pastoral care. His motto and his message were: “Obviam Christo” – “Towards Christ – by land, by sea and by air”.

What began in the mission was carried on in Germany after the Second World War. There, the pastoral care becomes increasingly difficult due to expellees and refugees; around 6,000 emergency church services are to be held here. In particular in the diaspora, with a severe shortage of priests and huge distances, a controlled motorisation aid is urgently needed. Father Schulte supports the procurement of vehicles in the missionary territories and in the German diaspora with great dedication. It is thanks to his initiative that the “Diaspora-MIVA” is founded on 3rd August 1949 in Fulda and integrated in the Bonifatiusverein – as the Bonifatiuswerk was called back then - as transport aid. Father Paul Schulte gives the following explanation as president of MIVA: “God steered MIVA in this direction so that in Germany it can fulfil a similar task to the one once given to St. Boniface: to organise and develop the pastoral care in Germany, namely with present-day modern resources.” The MIVA aid begins as early as the following October. Modest but effective – this is how the first aids for the pastoral assistants and priests in form of bicycles, mopeds and cars can be described. As from the mid-50ies, minibuses are increasingly providing transport in the spread out diaspora parishes.

Father Paul Schulte, born in Magdeburg in 1895, is unremittingly active for the MIVA until 1970. He does not miss the chance during major events to campaign for the motorisation of the pastoral care in the diaspora regions, to celebrate festival services and to bless vehicles for their service. Two heart attacks force him to abdicate from his office as president of the Diaspora-MIVA in 1970. He spends the remaining years of his life in Swakopmund, South Africa, where he dies on 7th January 1974 and is buried next to his friend Father Otto Fuhrmann.

The yellow bus – underway in the name of the Lord

Now, as then, numerous parishes in German diaspora regions need the “church bus” for their community activities because many small, spread out villages form one parish. In part, distances of approx. 30 kilometres and more have to be covered to get to church and to the community centre. But also Catholic schools, congregation initiatives and church-based youth and education centres are obtaining a yellow minibus thanks to the donations of many benefactors of the Diaspora-MIVA. Among other things it takes Catholic students to the parish rooms for religious education, youths to the holiday camp, children to the weekly choir practice or to their First Communion preparation, senior citizens to their afternoon get-together, and parish members to the church service.

We can no longer imagine the pastoral care in the diaspora without the yellow bus because it makes it “much easier to organise” the manifold communal life. Since 1990 more than 250 minibuses have been going into the parishes of the new German states alone, which are often very large in terms of area. In 2012 the Bonifatiuswerk gave an amount of 687,207.78 Euro for 37 buses.