May 22, 2026

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Deacon Khuishing’s path to priesthood winds from Myanmar to Indiana

Transitional Deacon Timothy Khuishing swings a thurible on March 31 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis during the archdiocese’s annual chrism Mass. He and two other transitional deacons will be ordained priests on June 6 at the cathedral. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

Transitional Deacon Timothy Khuishing was 12 when he and his family arrived as refugees in 2010 in Indianapolis from their native Myanmar (formerly Burma) in southeast Asia.

Fleeing ethnic and religious discrimination in Myanmar, a country often ruled by a repressive military dictatorship, they were glad to come to Indianapolis where they would be free to practice their Catholic faith and work to improve their life together.

But they were now living far away from home, in a culture very different from their own and with few other Catholic Burmese families in the city.

Deacon Khuishing recalls those early days when that handful of families on Indianapolis’ south side quickly built a tightknit community.

“Every Saturday night, we would pray the rosary in somebody’s home,” Deacon Khuishing said. “After the rosary, we would eat. That went on for multiple years. I miss those times. It was fun and helpful.”

It was that community of faith, centered first at St. Mark the Evangelist Parish and later also at St. Barnabas Parish, both on Indianapolis’ south side, that laid the groundwork for Deacon Khuishing and his friend, transitional Deacon Khaing Thu, to discern a call to the priesthood.

“It was the work of God that led me from Burma, where I might have ended up doing something else if I had continued to stay there, to a Catholic environment here in the U.S. where I continued to grow and remain rooted in my faith,” reflected Deacon Khuishing in an interview with The Criterion as he looked back on his life over the past 16 years. “That helped me to make my decision to enter the seminary.”

The sacrifice of the families of these two future priests and the dedication to the faith of other Catholic Burmese families who have come in increasing numbers to the south side for more than a decade have borne fruit in many ways.

One will be on distinctive display on June 6 when Archbishop Charles C. Thompson ordains Deacon Khuishing and Deacon Thu as priests for the Church in central and southern Indiana at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in a Mass that will begin at 10 a.m. Their close friend, transitional Deacon Sam Hansen, will also be ordained with them.

A mother’s dedication

The faith that was the foundation of Deacon Khuishing’s discernment of the priesthood was first formed by his mother, Mary Khova.

He recalled how she grew up in Myanmar as a Buddhist who was intrigued by Catholicism at a young age.

“She would sneak to church to attend Mass without her parents knowing,” Deacon Khuishing explained. “When she was old enough to make her own decisions, she converted to Catholicism.”

His father was raised as a Baptist Christian in Myanmar and received into the full communion of the Church after marrying Deacon Khuishing’s mother.

After his parents had been blessed with two daughters in their married life, his mother made a prayer to God.

“She asked God for a son and promised him that, if she had a son, she’d offer him back to God,” Deacon Khuishing said.

His parents were later blessed with the birth of their first son, Deacon Khuishing. But he struggled to live after being born prematurely.

“None of the doctors and nurses thought that I was going to survive,” he said. “But my mom took me home and raised me. I became a healthy boy and survived.”

As Deacon Khuishing grew up in Myanmar, he learned of his mother’s prayer. It also became known among his family and friends, both in Myanmar and later in Indianapolis.

He said that among these people it was taken for granted that Deacon Khuishing was meant to be a priest from the start.

While he didn’t oppose those presumptions as he grew up, Deacon Khuishing also didn’t embrace the idea of a calling to the priesthood.

“It was in the back of my mind even though I didn’t actively pursue it during my middle school and high school years,” he recalled.

Ping-pong, Panda Express and priesthood

It was only during his senior year at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis that Deacon Khuishing began to take steps to become an archdiocesan seminarian.

Retired Father Todd Riebe, who was Deacon Khuishing’s pastor at St. Mark from 2012-17, said it was a “shock to me” when he learned about his discernment.

“I didn’t know he was interested until I was asked for a letter of recommendation,” Father Riebe recalled. “Of course, I was delighted. He had kept things quiet. But what a great kid then and what a great man now.”

Deacon Khuishing was accepted as a seminarian and soon began formation at Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary and Marian University, both in Indianapolis.

Although a seminarian, he still hadn’t fully embraced the idea that God might be calling him to be a priest.

“In my first two years in the seminary, I was basically in my room, kind of shut in,” Deacon Khuishing said. “I didn’t really interact with the other seminarians.”

Among the few interactions he did have were at the seminary’s ping-pong table with his classmate, Father Isaac Siefker, who was ordained last year.

“We were the two quietest members of our class and so we just naturally sometimes found ourselves left together, so to speak,” said Father Siefker. “At first, we played ping-pong in silence. In time, we started trash talking each other.”

Their conversations began to broaden when they’d go for a meal at their favorite restaurant at the time: Panda Express.

“That’s where we’d talk and I’d say, ‘So, what’s Burma like?’ or ‘Why are you in seminary?” recalled Father Siefker, who serves as parochial vicar at Good Shepherd Parish in Indianapolis and Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Beech Grove.

Looking back on his early years in priestly formation, Deacon Khuishing realized that he could have easily walked away from it. But at the end of his second year at Bishop Bruté, he said he said to himself “that if this is what God is calling me to be, if it’s my true calling, then I need to change myself.”

And that’s what he went about doing in his last two years at the archdiocese’s college seminary.

“I became more active in reaching out to people,” Deacon Khuishing said. “I also learned more about the Catholic faith from prayer and my brother seminarians. Talking with my brother seminarians about their journey and being in prayer helped me to fall in love with our Catholic faith. That’s what made me stay in the seminary.”

Father Siefker saw the change in his ping-pong opponent during their final years at Bishop Bruté and the time they shared in priestly formation at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad.

He saw his friend go from limiting his conversation to trash talk at the ping-pong table to reflecting at length about his love for the Church’s liturgy and his desire to celebrate it well.

“I definitely saw a major transformation in him,” Father Siefker said. “To see him going from being passionate about ping-pong and soccer to him being invested in theology, liturgy and the sacramental life of the Church was cool.”

Laughing friends, proud friends

Since graduating from Saint Meinrad last December, Deacon Khuishing has ministered as a transitional deacon at St. Mark. Beginning on July 1, he’ll serve as parochial vicar at St. Malachy Parish in Brownsburg.

Before that, though, he will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Mark on the day he is ordained a priest.

His friends at St. Mark and the Burmese community there are excited about his and Deacon Thu’s upcoming ordination.

“We talk about it all the time,” said St. Mark parishioner Joseph Thang, a friend of Deacon Khuishing. “We’ve already planned a big celebration for them. They’re role models at St. Mark. We want the younger generation to become more open to the priesthood.”

Thang, 28, moved to Indianapolis from Myanmar with his family in 2010, months after Deacon Khuishing and his family came here. In fact, Deacon Khuishing and his family were at the airport in Indianapolis to welcome Thang and his family when they arrived.

Thang sees many good qualities in his longtime friend that will serve him well as a priest.

“He’s fair toward everybody,” Thang said. “He does the right thing even if people around him are going down the wrong path. He knows which is the right way to God. I like that quality in him. That inspired me and encouraged me to do the same thing, like him.”

Dr. Htoo Thu, a sister of Deacon Thu and a friend of Deacon Khuishing, is a resident physician at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.

She and her family came to Indianapolis in 2011 and were met at the airport by Deacon Khuishing and his family.

She spoke easily about the qualities she admires in her friend.

“He is a very dependable, reliable person,” Thu said. “He’s a very humble person. He’s honest.”

At the same time, she couldn’t keep from laughing about him.

“When you take him to a restaurant, whatever it is, there is only one thing that he’ll order: fried rice,” she says, poking fun at her friend. “If you go to a new restaurant, you’re supposed to try new things and explore. But he’ll stick to fried rice.

“As a foodie who’s very adventurous, he gets on my nerves sometimes.”

Jokes aside, Thu and the other members of the circle of friends at St. Mark are proud of Deacon Khuishing’s upcoming priestly ordination.

“This is everything that he’s worked for over the past several years,” she said. “It’s a moment that we’ve all been waiting for. We’re very excited.”

A heavenly way of saying ‘thank you’

For his part, Deacon Khuishing is excited to become a brother to all the priests who serve the Church in central and southern Indiana, a growing number of whom, like himself, were born in other countries.

“It doesn’t matter the differences in our age or our ethnic background, we have something that unites us and will pull us together,” he said. “We’re brothers in Christ. To be part of that brotherhood that is worldwide is something very supernatural and amazing.”

Deacon Khuishing is grateful for the blessing to join them in leading Catholics across the archdiocese in worship.

“Making the sacraments available to the people is what I look forward to and will enjoy the most,” he said.

Before that ministry begins at St. Malachy, he’s first looking forward to celebrating his Mass of Thanksgiving with the Burmese Catholic community and all the members of St. Mark who have done so much to shape his faith and the priest that God created him to be.

“Being able to make Jesus available to everybody, especially to the community that has helped me and raised me, will be a powerful moment for me.”

There will be another moving encounter for Deacon Khuishing after his ordination that will be even more personal for him.

As a way to express gratitude to their parents, it is a tradition in the Church for newly ordained priests to give the stole they use in their first celebration of the sacrament of penance to their father. When they die, they are buried with it.

Mothers of newly ordained priests are given by them what is called a maniturgium (Latin for “hand towel”). It’s the linen cloth that their sons use to wipe the scented chrism oil off their hands after they’ve been anointed during their ordination Mass. When the mothers die, they are buried with the maniturgium.

In a pious story that goes with this tradition, it is said that, when the mother of a priest dies and goes to the gates of heaven, Christ will meet her and say, “I have given you life. What have you given to me?” As she hands him the maniturgeum and says, “I have given you my son as a priest,” Christ opens the doors of heaven for her.

Deacon Khuishing has a custom-made maniturgium that he is looking forward to giving to his mother after he is ordained.

“It was her who brought me into the Catholic faith,” he said. “She was the start. Giving her that will be a way of saying thank you for raising me in the Catholic faith, raising me to become who I am today.”

(For more information about a vocation to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, visit HearGodsCall.com.) †

More about Transitional Deacon Timothy Khuishing

Age: 27

Parents: Augustine Thangtam and Mary Khova

Home Parish: St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis

Education: St. Mark the Evangelist School, Roncalli High School, Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary and Marian University, all in Indianapolis; Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad

Favorite Scripture verse/passage: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gn 3:19).

The Criterion