Sister Rose Mary Stein to embark on mission to Zambia

When Sister Rose Mary Stein OP, leaves for Zambia in June, she will depart for a land in which 600,000 children have been left orphaned,where malaria and tuberculosis go hand-in-hand with the AIDS pandemic, and where all water must be boiled before use. She will arrive in a land in which people like Sister Rose Mary are desperately needed.

Sister Rose Mary, pastoral minister at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City, will depart in early June for the African nation, where she will serve a six-month mission with the Dominican Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Ndola. She then will return to the Dodge City diocese and her position at the cathedral.

When asked if she felt any fears about the mission, she thought for a moment and replied, "I have no fears. The concern is that I’ll be able to do God’s work and be a good instrument in sharing the blessings I’ve received, and that I’m open to learning from their experiences in working with the poor."

She will be accompanied by Sister Harriet Agnew, a Dominican nurse from Kentucky. In a letter to cathedral parishioners, Sister Rose Mary wrote: "We will be praying, living and working with the sisters in Zambia and an international Dominican community for a six-month period. Our ministry will include health care, education, home base care of HIV/AIDS patients, pastoral care and sharing the Gospel message in parishes and with youth groups."

"The main reason I’m going is to do the will of God by immersing myself with the sisters, the people of that country, and their life," Sister Rose Mary told the SKR. "This will offer me hands-on experience instead of just reading about it."

The Kavu clinic, run by the Dominicans, offers needed health care and is only one of several missions. The sisters also provide home health care to outlying villages and they staff schools -- which are a bit like a train box car -- and orphanages, all of which offer challenges most Americans couldn’t begin to imagine. The sisters also offer Catholic education and spiritual guidance.

While the AIDS pandemic has left 600,000 children orphaned, the lack of space between the villages and fields has led to an infestation of mosquitoes and malaria. Tuberculosis is also common, as well as water-borne illnesses. Water is not safe to drink, and the fuel used to boil water comes at a cost.

Meanwhile, libraries are far and few between, and the cost of books is prohibitive. Sister hopes to use some of the money donated to her from "caring people" for books and supplies for these container schools.

Although she has never served an overseas mission, Sister Rose Mary has had plenty of mission experience right here in the States. Every summer for the past several years, Sister Rose Mary and a team of volunteers have attended two-week missions: painting homes for the elderly in Colorado, working with immigrants in Texas, serving the poor of Alabama, and teaching at an Indian mission in Oklahoma.

While in Alabama, where she and other volunteers served mostly impoverished African Americans, she was out walking one day when she saw several young men playing basketball, "so I went over and started playing with them because I love basketball. When I got back and told the other sisters where I had been, they said, ‘Oh, we never go into that part of town.’ Those men didn’t care. They let me play right along with them."

While teaching at the Indian mission, she asked a young girl if she wanted to study spelling or math, and she didn’t want to do either, so she crawled under her desk. After a while, she came out and said she wanted to read, but by then, the table we were going to read at was taken, so she became angry about that.

"Finally, she sat down across from me at a table and said, ‘You’re mad at me, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘You know, sometimes I become stubborn too, and sometimes I pout. Why don’t we just forget that happened, and begin again?’ She came over to me and gave me a big hug. I think that was the most important lesson she could have learned."

Sister Rose Mary said that the people of the cathedral parish have been "extremely supportive regarding her upcoming mission. The Knights of Columbus had a benefit breakfast to help donate to my expenses. And hardly a day goes by without someone asking me about it. That keeps my excitement alive."

In her letter to parishioners she wrote, "This experience will expand my heart, broaden my world view, and teach me truths I could never learn in a class. I pray to return to you changed in ways, ways that might touch our lives here on the plains of Kansas."