Roving Saints and Sisters

On 15^th October 2014, the Church began a year long celebration to mark the 5^th centenary of the birth of St. Teresa of Avila (28^th March 1515). St. Teresa was a woman of wisdom, a mystic and contemplative who taught others how to pray (she said “prayer is an act of love, words are not needed”) - prayer was at the heart of her life. However, St. Teresa was also an active woman, a tireless traveller (she has been named ‘the roving nun’) who founded many convents and then regularly visited them.

St. Teresa travelled around Spain & Portugal in a curtained “carriage” (an unsprung cart) drawn by mules. The roads, such as they were, would have been rough, stony and often steep and she had to negotiate mountains, arid plateaus and rivers. She and her companions were once nearly drowned when they were being ferried across a river in a boat. The boat they were in (with their “carriages”) had no oars and it broke loose from the ferry-rope and drifted down stream. "We began to pray and the boatmen to shout" wrote St. Teresa about the event. They were saved when the boat got stuck on a sand-bank.

There is also a story (possibly apocryphal, but it expresses St. Teresa’s intimate relationship with God) that St. Teresa’s carriage was once overturned and she was thrown out onto a muddy road causing her to protest “Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you don’t have many!”

As the supporters of SURVIVE-MIVA are only too aware, there are many parts of the world today where people have to negotiate terrain equally as demanding as St. Teresa traversed. The following information received in July 2013 from Sr. Binu Jose, a member of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod, illustrates this very well. Sr. Binu is based at Pushpanjali Mission Centre, Maharashtra State, India where the Sisters run health and social development activities with people in the area who are poor and marginalised. The people the Sisters support live in remote villages with the nearest primary Health Centre being 8-30 km away. Anyone needing the services of the Health Centre has to travel on foot or in bullock carts because there are no other transport facilities. In  Sr. Binu’s own words: ‘most of the poor are living in the remote areas … Due to famine and other related factors, there are many malnutrition deaths … almost all live in one-room hutments [sic] made of mud, sticks and leaves. …Unavailability of proper transportation & communication facilities add to their segregation, many of the interior and forest regions have only stony & rough pathways. Educationally, about 60% of the population is illiterate, which makes them suffer the various forms of oppression and injustices in a silent manner, because of poverty children have to work to support their families. Health & medical facilities are poor in these interior villages. Rarely does one see doctors & nurses attending to the patients. There are also HIV/AIDS patients in most of our target villages.’

The Sisters of the Cross have a small dispensary to cater for the health needs of people living in villages in a radius of 30km and, when they approached SURVIVE-MIVA for a transport grant, they had just 3 motorcycles available to carry out their work. The Sisters requested a grant to enable them to purchase a van to use as a mobile clinic, as they aimed to visit 24 villages fortnightly to provide medical care and health education and set-up self-help groups.  Sr. Binu stated that the van they had chosen ‘is suitable for our rough roads …gives the average of 25km per one litre of diesel. Its maintenance cost is minimal too. …the back door can be opened upwards & can give shade & protection in emergency situations’.

A grant of £6,500 enabled the Sisters to buy the van (pictured) and about a month after their purchase Sr. Binu wrote to us again with an update: ‘We are really very grateful to you and happy that there is so much difference in our work from the time the van has entered our Centre. We are able to save a lot of time and we are able to do the work much faster. It is a blessing for us and the people we serve. Already we were able to save 2 lives (mother and child) at the time of pregnancy, since the van was helpful to reach the nearest hospital, which was not possible earlier. Going to these interior villages late at night was only a dream for us, till the van came, but now we can be at the service of the people day and night. It is a real blessing that we received from God, through you and your team. Just yesterday we held a medical camp in one of the interior villages, since we could take the doctors with our van, very many of them benefitted from this small act of ours … Once again wishing you and your team God’s abundant graces and blessings always and every day.’

‘The feeling remains that God is on the journey too’ St. Teresa of Avila.