Sister Rachel Lauze
Current Mission Location – Japan
Rachel Lauze was born May 27, 1950 in Lewiston, ME to Raymonde (Bouchard) Lauze and Laurier Lauze. She had 2 sisters. Rachel graduated from St. Dominic’s High School in Lewiston in 1968 and earned a diploma from the St. Mary Hospital School of Nursing in Lewiston in 1971.
Rachel entered the Maryknoll Sisters August 21, 1972 at the novitiate in St. Louis, MO. She pronounced First Vows February 14 1975 in St. Louis and Final Vows September 2, 1979 in the Cloister at Maryknoll, NY. In 1974 she was assigned to Bandung, West Java in Indonesia where she began a community based health program in affiliation with the local hospital and the Borromeo Sisters.
On returning to the States in 1978 she did further studies and obtained an MA in Theology from the Maryknoll School of Theology and a BA in Psychology from Marymount College, Tarrytown, NY in 1981.
Following her call to a life of prayer and solitude in support of Maryknoll missioners and mission throughout the world, Sister Rachel entered the Maryknoll Sisters Cloister on August 8, 1981 and became a member of the Contemplative Community in the Center Cloister, in Gallop, New Mexico among the Navajo Indians, and in Udon Thani, Thailand where she and Maryknoll Sister Muriel Vollmer opened a house of prayer in 1991.
On August 8, 1998 Sister Rachel was assigned to active ministry in the Congregation and the following year to the Japan Region. Living in the metropolis of Tokyo Sister Rachel worked with the staff and volunteers of Sanyukai, a non-profit organization, to prepare and serve food for homeless men and women. In this support center, one among others in Tokyo, they served up to 50 hot meals each day and on outreach days twice a week, they distributed lunches to perhaps 500 men who lived in the public parks, and even a handful of women.
In another non-profit organization called the You-I Home, Sister Rachel did Art Therapy in one of the shelters for homeless women putting into practice one of her many talents developed after obtaining a Certificate in Applied Art in from the Westchester Art Workshop in White Plains, NY in 1994.