By Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer, MMM       U.S.A.           06.03.2022
When I last wrote to you about the meaning of Advocacy which I learned from Sister Cora Wall MMM, I also remembered the very beginnings of the founding of our Mission in Ogoja to those suffering from Hansen’s Disease as Leprosy is now called.  Three Sisters, Theresa Connolly, Sr. de Lourdes Gogan, and Sr. Philomena Doyle travelled by lorry from Lagos to Ogoja in 1945. The distance was over five hundred kilometers.  What must it have been like for them travelling over bumpy dusty roads for that length of a journey?

They were answering the call from Monsignor Mc Gettrick to care for over thirty thousand people suffering from Hansen’s Disease. He gave the Sisters a house on the Church property and from there he took them to the site of the proposed hospital and treatment center. What anguish must have filled their hearts when all they saw was a field growing yam. Yet they buckled down into producing an exceptionally fine hospital and treatment center. Of course, it was with your grandparents or parents help. Also, their trust in God and our foundress Mother Mary’s maxim “If God wants the work, He will show the way.

The way is a series of small steps. God leads us in the reality of now. What is before me now is the next step to take. I have taken the following from the booklet written by Sister Magdalen O’Rourke” Early Memoirs of MMM 1934- 1945 “
“Fund raising was always a big issue, and was necessary for clearing the debt, maintaining the Sisters, and supporting our Mission in Nigeria. All kinds of ways and means were tried. One was the running of whist drives in the convent on Sunday afternoons which became popular and was a social event. Tables were put up in the Community Room and on the corridors. These tables were borrowed from the Christian Brothers school; the delph was borrowed from the Presentation Convent and the trays for the tea from the brewery.” God blessed all our efforts.

Something similar is going on with our new Lenten Campaign, Steps of Hope. We are counting on your prayers and generosity and who knows what remembrances will spring up from the good you are doing now?

Editor’s Note: If you would like to join Sr. Margaret Anne, here is the link
https://www.idonate.ie/event/3401_steps-for-hope-2022.html