AS a young priest fresh from the seminary cold bench, Fr William Van Gastel found little time to learn the foreign language properly when he was posted to Sabah (North Borneo then). What he found himself doing, he wasted no…
FATHER William Van Gastel MHM was principal of St Michael’s School, Penampang from 1967-71. The school at that time was both a primary and secondary under one administration. Being a farsighted person he saw the immediate need to reorganize the…
FR GASTEL recalled in 1963 and the immediate years that followed the formation of Malaysia, mass conversions took place, school policies changed, societal changes took place, systematic expulsions of foreign priests and religious were carried out, etc. “I was one…
ALBEIT hearing many stories, Fr Gastel as a newly ordained priest found literally no clue to help him to navigate the strange people with strange customs and languages, whom he met for the first time arriving in North Borneo. Besides…
Fr. Gastel with Archbishop John Wong and some of his ex-students of St.Michael's Secondary School, Penampang KOTA KINABALU - Forty six years ago, a freshly-ordained Mill Hill priest, Fr William Van Gastel, stepped ashore the land of North Borneo (now…