Sister Susan Nchubiri Current Mission Location – Maryknoll Sisters Center- Maryknoll, NY
Susan Nchubiri was born June 20, 1970 in Meru, Eastern Kenya to Janet Kalingu Nchubiri and Joseph Nchubiri. She had 5 brothers: Ephraim, Aloysius, Benjamin, Silas and Francis; and 3 sisters: Martha, Jane and Helen. Susan graduated from Kibiricha Girls Secondary School in Meru in 1989.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi in 1999 and a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Nairobi in 2004, Susan entered the Maryknoll Sisters August 8, 2004 at the Sisters’ Center in NY. She celebrated her First Profession of Vows August 27, 2006 at the Center and Final Vows September 8, 2012 also at the Center.
Sister Susan’s first mission assignment was to the China/Hong Kong/Macau Region in January, 2007.
Sister Susan returned to Kenya for a home visit and wonderful time with her family and friends before leaving for Hong Kong. She traveled across Kenya giving Mission Awareness programs and vocation talks. She was touched by the enthusiasm, curiosity and energy of the young people with whom she dialogued in various parts of the country.
When Sister Susan arrived in Hong Kong, all the Maryknoll Sisters were waiting for her in the airport and she thought people must wonder who is this black woman being welcomed with such warmth and joy by so many women!
From 2007 to 2011, Sister Susan studied Cantonese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Like all language students she experienced her days of discouragement and wrote, “Sometimes I have spoken to Chinese people in Swahili or Kimeru and in my mind I am convinced I am speaking in Chinese. When I see the confusion in their faces and repeat what I have said, it dawns on me that I am speaking ‘in tongues’.” Some of her friends in the youth group she attended teased her and “of course taught me some naughty words.”
She was invited to visit a small village in Mainland China with a group of youth and a priest, seminarian and another Maryknoll Sister. They played games and sang with the children, visited a Hanson’s disease colony where they celebrated the Eucharist. Sister Susan reflected, “The poverty in that area reminded me of the slums in Nairobi, Kenya.”
In July, 2008, Sister Susan attended the World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia accompanying thirty-two Hong Kong Maryknoll Convent School students and three staff members. They were welcomed as pilgrims of peace bringing with them their youth, hope, dreams and lives filled with enthusiasm. For Sister Susan it was a kind of spiritual renewal and she was grateful to God, the Maryknoll Sisters in the China Region, and the Maryknoll Convent School for giving her the opportunity to attend such a memorable event. “I hope to keep accompanying the young people here and anywhere else mission brings me.”
Sister was assigned to the Maryknoll Sisters’ first new commitment in Haiti from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, she was assigned to the Center in NY to serve in the IT department.