SISTER MICHAELA TALKING ABOUT THE WORK OF FATHER AL AND THE SISTERS OF MARY, NOVEMBER 2017
Sister Michaela spoke at great length about her experience of working with Father Al to establish the programs of the Sisters of Mary, starting in South Korea and then extending to the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and most recently Honduras. This is just a short extract of her interview on how the Sisters of Mary programs were started.
After the Korean War everything was destroyed, many, many people died. At that time Father Al was a missionary priest, it was the 1960s. He wanted to help the poorest of the poor, mostly children, separated by war from their families. These children had nobody to care for them and had to beg on the street and steal to survive. At that time there were a lot of orphanages for these children and for babies but the staffing of these orphanages was very poor and when Father Al visited them the lives of the children were not changing, they were miserable places and the children were still very poor, very weak and uneducated. Father Al always thought that the family unit was the most important thing and that is why he decided to build his own family style orphanages to help these children.
Father Al had a very pure heart and a pure mind and what he knew he taught us (the Sisters of Mary) that Jesus focuses on how to help the poor, the suffering, the needy. He showed us how to help them and how to teach them of our love. Father Al demonstrated his religious values and his faith through his way of life and he taught us how to help people living in misery, the poorest of the poor, people suffering in torment.
Our donors help us with the donations they give. It doesn’t matter how large or small the donations, they all help us in our work. Father Al wrote letters to our donors because our children need a place to live, they need to study and learn skills so they can get a job, earn money and support themselves. When donors contribute to our charity, the people’s charity, we can help more children who are in need and suffering. If we can give them a good education these children will live properly and successfully.
