In small-town Tanzania, jobs aren’t easy to come by. Poverty is rampant, and what businesses there are aren’t big enough to employ many people. So when Anna Mbenyeti’s husband died, she was left wondering how she would feed her six children in her isolated village near Dodoma, Tanzania. Now, years later, her start-up business is feeding many more children than that, thanks to the financial help provided by the generous friends of the Maryknoll Sisters.
It’s no secret that children like sweet snacks. Mothers, though, like nutritious foods for their kids. Anna saw that and began to market a healthy snack with the help of Sister Connie Krautkremer.
Mentored by Sr. Connie Krautkremer, Anna Mbenyeti makes healthy snacks so kids in rural Tanzania can learn.
Mentored by Sr. Connie Krautkremer, Anna Mbenyeti makes healthy snacks so kids in rural Tanzania can learn.
Anna knew that she could bake, and that was the seed from which her idea grew. She asked herself what she could bake that was quick and easy–and delicious for the kids who milled about on the street corners after school. Anna got the idea of making mandazi, an East African snack of fried dough that kids couldn’t get enough of. What’s more, customers could eat them without a fork and knife.
At first, Anna’s income was small. Anna’s small business seemed destined to stay that way as it paid the bills–yet only barely. Anna only had to look in front of her to find a clientele that would keep coming back for more. And they did.
Her best customers turned out to be local children from the school nearby. Where else could they get home-cooking that was hot and ready to eat right from the roadside where Anna had her stand.
“Instead of buying sweets like candy, they buy these healthy snacks,” says Sister Connie. Though Anna’s fresh-baked treats are mildly sweet, they’re not nearly as sugar-heavy as processed foods. Ingredients such as coconut milk, peanuts, and almonds in mandazionly add to the nutrition value of the snacks. So Sister Connie was pleased to approve Anna’s request for a loan that was needed so she could expand her business.
With a small no-interest loan Anna received from Sister Connie’s Hope for Widows Fund, Anna has been able to finally see success after all these years. Anna was able to make more of the snacks that keep children racing to her, and the boys and girls from the school are only too glad to hand over what spare change they had in their pockets. Anna also used part of the loan money to buy containers that would protect her treats from flies and keep them fresh for an entire day.
Sister Connie knows that Anna’s success means no worries that the loan will be repaid: “It is helpful to Anna that there is enough time to repay the loan, and there is no interest,” Sister Connie says. For Anna, the project was a godsend because on her own, she likely would not have been able to get a loan.
Because people generously donated to the Maryknoll Sisters, families like Anna’s can grow and prosper in ways that meet the needs of everyone in their communities.
Although we trust that our lives are in God’s hands, all of us want to feel like we have some measure of control over the day-to-day details. To be powerless to improve our own situation, to live without even basic rights and human dignity is unjust and overwhelming. And yet that is the harsh reality for the women of Namibia who have been denied a voice in their own future. They can’t even own property and are oftenvictim to domestic violence and other tragedies that are forced upon them.
“I believe this is God’s work, and God is with us, guiding us, leading us to wherever God needs us to go and this gives me joy!”
Sister Aida Manlucu, M.M, entered into this world of imbalance and injustice in 1998, when she first began serving the poor of Namibia, in particular women who are oppressed beyond imagination. In their eyes she saw a hunger for something better — for themselves and their children, but they were powerless to make a change. Sr. Aida’s ministry empowers women and gives them the tools and knowledge they need to direct their own course and step into their own lives.
By forming the Women’s Desk and serving on the Women’s Commission of the Namibian Bishops’ Conference, Sister Aida has been able to conduct workshops for local women on domestic violence, inheritance and property rights, leadership training, and HIV/AIDS.
These kinds of programs, whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or right here at home require resources to assist our Sisters who live among the poor they serve.
You can help continue the work and ministry of Sister Aida Manlucu by contributing to her and many other Maryknoll Sisters around the world.
Sister Rose Bernadette Gallagher and so many other older Maryknoll Sisters have made it their life’s work to bring about positive change in our world. We are so blessed to count them among our community, and we marvel at their enthusiasm for embracing new ways of ministering to God’s people.
Sister Rose Bernadette has spent decades working on behalf of women and children whose futures are not their own, giving them the tools, support and protection they need to reclaim and rebuild their lives.
“Their dignity as women was so violated; that started my passion for working with women.”
Because of Sister Rose Bernadette’s passion, countless women and children will be spared lives of exploitation and violence. Because of her determination, the rest of the world is now more aware of the sad reality of human trafficking and sexual slavery.
Today, Sister Rose Bernadette and these older Sisters remain a vital part of our mission. Through a ministry of prayer, they focus their time and energy on specific countries where our Sisters are striving to make God’s love visible on a daily basis. Your gifts allow us to support and care for these ordinary women who have done – and continue to do – extraordinary things.
To learn more how you can be part of our vision for the future, please download our summer letter about our ill and elderly Sisters. Today we need your help in providing comfort and care to our older Sisters. Your gift will support these Sisters with medicine, wheelchairs, walkers, health aides, and nurses as our missioners look forward to their second century of service.
We are all very aware of the violence and suffering being experienced in Iraq at this time. Many have had to flee but many remain in their communities experiencing anxiety and fear as violence erupts all around them. In solidarity with the Iraqi people and with the minority Christian Community, the leader of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Sienna in Mosul, Iraq has called her sisters throughout Iraq to a time of intense prayer for peace and the protection of people of all faiths in Iraq.
We, along with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), call our sisters around the world to join the Iraqi Sisters in a time of prayer on Thursday, June 19 at 6 p.m. (in your time zone) to pray for an end to the violence and for the protection of all faith groups in Iraq. We encourage you to participate in this act of contemplative solidarity in the privacy of your heart, in your local community or chapel. Let us pray that there may be peace in Iraq and peace in the hearts of all peoples.
In the spirit of solidarity and gratitude,
The Congregational Leadership Team of the Maryknoll Sisters
Let’s face it, almost everyone feels stress in their lives. A big source of stress is change, and Japan is a country where people are facing life-changing stress. Using techniques being shared by the Maryknoll Sisters, people in Japan are finding some measure of relief. They include people affected by widespread migration and victims of radiation exposure who live near the Fukushuma nuclear plant, destroyed in the 2011 tsunami.
Over a 10-day period in May and June, two Maryknoll Sisters experimented with a plan to offer workshops in “liturgical dance” and “healing relationships” that helped people get in touch with the divine within themselves.
“Because the participants are our lay leaders to whom we give monthly study sessions, they were surprised that they learned many things through the body exercises and not necessarily from textbooks or lectures,” said Sister Margaret Lacson(at right in above photo).
Some workshops were held for Filipinas and parish leaders from across the Yokohama diocese. Another class was held at a parish near the Fukushima nuclear plant. As lay leaders, they are in touch with many in their own churches and can give help and guidance. All participants were Catholics and had the desire to learn about expressing prayer not only through words but through their own bodies. “One single mother (at a workshop) reflected that one exercise would help her to deal with her bi-cultural teenage daughter who’s in a rebellious stage now,” Sister Margaret said.
In Kamakura, Japan, where Sister Margaret is based, people struggling with such change are not hard to find, and that includes women who have come to Japan to find husbands and start families. They’ve come from places like the Philippines and other Asian countries. The benefits of these pre-arranged relationships are often mixed. The migrant women and their bi-cultural children often find it hard to adapt to Japanese ways. Domestic violence is another problem that is all too real, leaving behind physical and psychological scars.
“The workshops are helping us to be grounded in our own bodies,” said Sister Margaret. Though “we experience the world through our bodies,” she says, not everyone is successful at achieving such a mind-body balance. Part of Sister Margaret’s mission is helping Filipina women adjust to life in their new culture. “One single mother (at the workshop) reflected that one exercise would help her to deal with her bi-cultural teenage daughter who’s in a rebellious stage now,” said Sister Margaret, a Philippines-born missioner who is serving in cross-cultural mission in Japan as a Maryknoll Sister.
Sister Margaret (at right in photo, top) had to do was look around her to find people who could benefit from the techniques, which combine the use of dance to achieve a solemn, prayerful state. She gives a monthly training to lay leaders at a parish near the Fukushima nuclear plant to help parishioners help their neighbors who are suffering from radiation exposure as a result of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
During the workshops, Sister Margaret takes a supportive role as fellow Maryknoller, Sister Jeong Mi Lee (2nd from left in middle photo, foreground), introduces her sacred style of liturgical dance to Japanese audiences for the first time. During one of the sessions, Sister Jeong Mi showed how to breathe deeply and let the energy flow easily through her body. One of the women taking the class focused her breathing on her knee, where she was experiencing some pain. Somehow, the breathing exercise helped to ease the pain, and soon it appeared to be gone.
“I am innocent.” What was it about Glisson’s words that struck Sister Joanna as he pleaded his innocence from behind bars at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility? View the Dateline episode, “A Bronx Tale,” in its entirety to find out.
Though Maryknoll Sisters are better known for their behind-the-scenes mission work that brings change to the world with a meekness that’s modeled after Jesus, Dateline NBC provided Sister Joanna with a national audience to describe how her mission work mentoring inmates inside Sing Sing prison put her into contact with Glisson, who had been serving 25 years to life for murder.
The case drew headlines that shined a spotlight on New York’s criminal justice system and the efforts of Sister Joanna and others to reverse a miscarriage of justice that took 17 years of Glisson’s life while behind bars. Watch “A Bronx Tale” for interviews with Sister Joanna, New York police department and federal investigators, and a look at new evidence that got the court to set free Glisson and five others who were charged with the murder of a livery cab driver in 1995.
Inmates at the prison affectionately addressed Sister Joanna as “Grandma” because she would listen to their struggles. “Nothing but the grace of God pulled me through,” Glisson said, looking back on the ordeal.
Just before Glisson won his freedom, Sister Joanna said to him: “Your family must love you very much, and he said, ‘Yes, because they know I am innocent.'”
If you feel a week can’t go by without a seemingly-random shooting occurring somewhere in the United States, you’re not that far off. In the three weeks since May 23, there have been four acts of violence involving guns fired on people at public places like schools and stores–and the latest, at a place of God.
The latest episode, on Wednesday night, occurred at a church in Phoenix. A priest was shot and killed, and another priest is in critical condition, following the shooting attack at Mater Misericordiae Mission, a Catholic church in Phoenix.
Please join us in praying for the church victims in Arizona–and for those wounded and killed during senseless violence that occurred recently in California, Washington, and Oregon:
God of Creation, You are always with us!
Your will is true Peace for us….your people.
Give us your Vision of Peace!
Send us your Spirit to guide us in all our efforts to
bring peace and justice to humankind.
Inspire all who come together to search out – and those who enact the ways of Peace.
God of Love, let not disagreements disturb us.
Teach us to forgive, not tomorrow but today. Clear away any bitterness or anger.
From Maryknoll Magazine: Dar es Salaam is a rapidly expanding city. In the coming years this capital of Tanzania is expected to expand even more, with increased building and more economic opportunities. However, development is taking its toll on the environment as well as human lives and I am working to heal both.
Much of Tanzania’s landscape is surrounded by large boulders, which entrepreneurs are removing to construct buildings. The process is leaving huge holes, like craters, rendering the land unusable, causing massive erosion, and pushing out wildlife, flora and fauna.
Added to that is the plight of the women who labor to break up the stones to construct the buildings.
Trucks transport the boulders to a site where the women’s task is to cut them into small stones about three inches in diameter. They do this by hand, using large, heavy sledgehammers. The women then deposit their work into 10 kilo sacks (a little under 23 pounds), which the truckers haul away. The women are paid 200 Tanzanian shillings per bag, the U.S. equivalent of about 13 cents. They labor all day for perhaps $1.
Many of the women have lung problems. Many are completely blind or have impaired vision caused by the stone chips, particles and dust covering not only their faces but their whole bodies as they work day after day under a blazing sun. They have no hope of ever leaving this work until their bodies completely give out. I am working to help them heal holistically, that is, restoring their whole being, body and spirit, to health.
During my 18 years as a missioner in Tanzania I have discovered the importance of holistic healing working not only with women’s groups but also youth groups and children with hiv. I started out as a high school math teacher. At first it didn’t occur to me that I could go deeper than just dealing with the students’ minds in the learning process. The mind is just one part of the person as a complete system—physically, psychologically and spiritually.
I came to understand that the whole person is involved in any activity. That is what is meant by holistic. So I moved from formal teaching to informal teaching and the art of holistic healing. I believe that through nurturing, listening and responding to the deeper wisdom of our whole being, we can heal ourselves and our world.
Some of the practices I use are taken from a program developed in Central America and based in Watsonville, Calif., called “Capacitar,” meaning “enabling,” in which I have been trained as a practitioner. The program encourages meditation, body movement, visualization and breathing, active listening, simple psychotherapeutic skills, acupressure for alleviating pain and stress, and indigenous healing herbs as medicine and food. The arts, including dance, music, sculpture and painting, are all important tools in the process of helping people heal.
I am bringing these tools to the women who cut stones for a living. I meet with them for approximately four hours each week. Half of that time we spend learning and practicing different healing exercises and meditation to restore their energy that has been depleted by the difficulties of their everyday lives. The rest of the time we do art projects as a tool for healing as well as income-generation.
As a Maryknoll Sister, I am committed to carry on our charism: “to be an active participant in the mission of God: a mission of peace, healing, wholeness and love.” Therefore, even as I work to help the women, I also fight against the practices that are not only threatening their lives but also destroying their environment.
My work with these women is just a tiny beginning, but at least it is a beginning. Prior to this project, they were unaware of life outside the only one they knew. Although the four hours a week that I provide for them will not radically change their lives, it does allow them to view a different horizon; it enhances their self-esteem.
In order to compensate for their lost wages while these women attend our weekly meeting, we began a microcredit project with funds I had raised. We have been able to generate a little money from the artifacts and cards we make during our sessions.
I am always touched and humbled by the life and endurance of such women. They are not poor! They are rich inside; they simply have been denied their rights. They have taught me more than the knowledge I have shared with them.
What gives me hope is that the women who come to our weekly meetings are committed to having their daughters attend school. This may be the greatest outcome for their future.
From Maryknoll Magazine: I believe religious life has a prophetic voice for the world and that we need to proclaim this from the heart of who we are,” says Sister Antoinette (Nonie) Gutzler, the newly elected president of the Maryknoll Sisters.
She and a three-member team of Sisters will for the next six years lead their Congregation to continue to proclaim God’s love to the world. This, says Sister Gutzler, means discerning where the greatest needs are and how God is calling the Sisters to respond. The new leadership team brings to this task vast experience in mission overseas and in the United States.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sister Gutzler entered the Congregation in 1964. She took education courses at the Maryknoll Sisters Rogers College and earned a bachelor’s degree in theology from Mundelein College in Chicago in 1971.
That year she also received her first overseas assignment, to Tanzania, where she taught religion and helped establish a Christian center for high school students. In 1975 she returned to the States to do mission education in the New England area. In 1978 she was assigned to Taiwan. For the next 10 years she was director of the Sodality of Young Workers Center, founded by the Maryknoll Sisters for factory workers to find support and learn leadership skills.
Called back to Maryknoll, N.Y., in 1989, Sister Gutzler became director of the Sisters personnel office, which, she says, gave her the opportunity to meet many Sisters she didn’t know. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D., both in systematic theology, from Fordham University
and returned to Taiwan in 2001. Since then, she has been teaching in the theologate at Fu Jen University and giving lectures in theology throughout Asia.
Sister Gutzler says she remains inspired by her Taiwanese sisters and brothers. “Many,” she says, “live their faith in the midst of a multi-religious family, where they are the only Catholic.”
As for her Congregation, she says, “I hope we continue to grow in our contemplative awareness of what is happening in our world, with an ever deepening passion for Christ’s mission by being witnesses of God’s loving presence in all of creation and in all people.”
Sister Numeriana (Norie) Mojado, vice president, was born in the Philippines. After graduating as a nurse from the Marian School of Nursing in Manila, she worked in emergency rooms for 13 years in the Philippines, the United States and Canada. “However,” she says, “I needed something more. That’s when I saw Maryknoll magazine and applied to join the Sisters.”
She studied theology at the Maryknoll School of Theology and became certified in clinical pastoral education. In 1976, she received her first mission assignment: South Korea, to work in a psychiatric clinic in Seoul. Sister Mojado was part of an integrated community of Maryknoll priests, lay missioners and Korean religious and laity, offering pastoral counseling and spiritual direction among the urban poor. Maryknoll Father Russell Feldmeier was also on the team.
Back in the States, Sister Mojado earned a master’s degree in religious education, with concentrations in pastoral counseling and spiritual direction, at Fordham University. She then returned to Seoul and ministered to women involved in prostitution and migrant workers. She has served her Congregation as admissions co-director and personnel director. In 2013 she was assigned to the Maryknoll Sisters contemplative community.
Regarding her new work on the Sisters leadership team, she says, “I believe it was all those experiences I’ve had that prepared me to accept this new ministry.”
Sister Anastasia Lott, team member, was born in Landstuhl, Germany, where her father was stationed as a member of the U.S. Air Force. The oldest of nine children, Sister Lott expressed a desire to be a Maryknoll missioner while still in high school in Santa Ana, Calif., but her parents encouraged her to finish her education first. She graduated from the University of San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry.
She spent two years with the Jesuit Volunteers Corps and then joined the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. Assigned to Venezuela, she did community organizing and pastoral ministry in urban areas.
In 1986 she joined the Maryknoll Sisters and was assigned to Bura-Tana, a rural area in northeastern Kenya, for eight years. Then she worked in the capital of Nairobi as a community consultant with Jesuit Relief Services. She later moved to Namibia and did pastoral and leadership training for the Rundu Vicariate. During her last year in Namibia, Sister Lott served as human resource development officer for Catholic Health Services and volunteered with Criminals Return Into Society, teaching business management and computer skills to former inmates.
In 2003, she was called back to Maryknoll, N.Y., to be director of Planned Giving and later, the Development Department. “I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to serve my community,” she says, “and to work with and know our donors, who are really the bedrock of our work.”
Now, she says, “I plan to do the best I can on the leadership team to work together to serve the mission of God.”
Sister Teruko Ito, team member, was born in Kyoto, Japan. Seeing the Maryknoll Sisters in mission there inspired her. She decided to join them in 1968 after she graduated from Maryknoll College in the Philippines with a degree in math. Her first assignment took her to Tanzania, where she taught math in secondary school.
Returning to New York, she worked in the Congregation’s Development Department while earning a master’s degree in religious studies at Maryknoll School of Theology. In 1978 she was assigned to Japan, where for almost 10 years she assisted a Maryknoll priest in establishing and expanding the Alcoholics Anonymous program. “I was there not as a therapist, but as a friend for whoever wished to have a conversation with me to deepen their understanding about a Higher Power,” Sister Ito says. By the time she left, there were 10 AA centers throughout Japan.
In 1989 Sister Ito was assigned as co-director of the Sisters’ orientation house for new members. She remained there for five years and after studying pastoral counseling at Fordham University, she went to Guatemala to work with indigenous Mayan women, assisting them with potable water projects, medical aid and building self-esteem. “Now they are in charge of various projects and have become proud of who they are,” says Sister Ito.
As a member of the Sisters’ leadership team, she says, “I hope to be able to share my experiences, where I witnessed miracles happening in the lives of others because they surrendered themselves to a Higher Power.”
Graduation day will be held in November for seniors at St. Paul Catholic High School (Colégio São Paulo). As they receive their prized diplomas, the newly graduated members of the Class of 2014 in Aileu, East Timor, will have plenty of memories of lessons learned in the classroom. A Maryknoll Sister, though, will never forget what her students taught her.
“They led me out of the classroom and into villages, beaches, boats, marketplaces, kitchens, and mountain trails in the name of ‘teaching,’” Sister Julia Shideler said of the students who have risen from the poverty of their country to graduate.
“They taught me that a teacher is first of all a person who cares, gives of herself, practices what she teaches, models behavior rather than preaches it, has infinite patience, and offers all that she’s learned in life as living wisdom for a new generation.” Since arriving in East Timor six year ago, Sister Julia has taught subjects as diverse as geology, human origins, and English. Lately, she’s had lots of time to think about the students she said goodbye to for several months this year as she discerned professing Final Vows in September.
In addition to her preparation for Final Vows, Sister Julia, 36, has spent the last five months training to run a half-marathon race near Seattle. For each mile she completed in the Snohomish River Run on October 26, supporters are pledging to donate to the scholarship fund she created for her students back in East Timor. The teens’ fervent desire is to graduate from college, a dream that most of their families cannot afford.
“I was not a trained teacher when I left for East Timor, but what I learned about teaching came from my experiences with these beloved ones,” Sister Julia said of the teens, who have become more than ordinary students. Throughout the half-marathon, held in Snohomish, WA, the young people were on her on mind with each sprint she exerted. Sister Julia was happy with her success in the 13.5-mile race–she crossed the finish line with a time of one hour, 59 minutes and 17 seconds. That translates to about 9 minutes per mile! To all of her students back in East Timor, she says, “Thank you.”
Sister Julia is one of four Maryknoll Sisters who serve the economically poor in the island nation of 1,201,542 people (CIA World Factbook) just north of Darwin, Australia, with Indonesia as its neighbor. Education remains a challenge following years of war as the nation struggled for independence. Over 70 percent of children leave school before reaching the ninth year, according to the country’s Strategic Development Plan 2011-2030. In 2004, when a comprehensive census was completed, less than one in two people graduated from high school.
Celina Saldanha is among the lucky ones. A young woman in high school, Celina has eight young siblings and a single mother who suffers from back injuries. Celina was sent to Aileu to live with an uncle, Sister Julia said, but he can’t afford the school fees. ”I agreed to pay her tuition at the Catholic high school until she graduates. Otherwise, she may be forced to drop out.”
Francisco Martins also has a dream. Francisco was orphaned at a young age, losing both parents during the Indonesian occupation. Raised by an uncle, he was left alone after finishing high school. “I knew he was bright and capable,” Sister Julia said, “so with our support, he enrolled in mathematics with the dream of becoming a math teacher.”
“This ministry is ongoing,” she said, “as I try to follow up and stay in touch with the students.” During these months serving in the United States, while visiting family in the state of Washington, Sister Julia is preparing to return to East Timor with news of the scholarships she will be offering, raised in part from her half-marathon in October.
With all she has on her plate, Sister Julia gets inspiration from the young people who relied on her. One of the first students Sister Julia sent to college is now an English teacher; Pinto Pereira began college in 2008 with Sister Julia’s mentoring and financial help. “Through him, I have learned so much about life and families in the most remote villages of East Timor–and the challenges they face to overcome hurdles on their path to education. Tears still come to my eyes when I remember all the conversations we had on our front porch, in the sitting room, and the hours of stories I have listened to.”
In giving educational scholarships to more young people in Aileu District, including deserving members of the Class of 2014 at St. Paul’s, Sister Julia is hoping they learn a fundamental message of mission—and of life: “I want them to feel like God is there for them, working through other people, and that God will use them in the future to help other people.”
To donate to Sister Julia’s scholarship fund, please visit Nun Run.
