Foreign Missions

Sisters of the Presentation have served in foreign missions for over thirty years.  One of the calls from the Second Vatican Council was for religious congregations to send a percentage of their personnel to foreign missions.

Since that time, Presentation Sisters have served in Central and South America.  Currently, two Presentation Sisters, Sister Ellen Cafferty, PBVM, and Sister Kathleen Curtin, PBVM, are serving as a foreign missionaries in Guatemala.  Sister Rachel Pinal, PBVM, is serving in Nicaragua.

Sister Ellen Cafferty, PBVM

Sister Ellen Cafferty, PBVM, is a staff member in the Parroquia Jesus Nipalakin (Jesus Walks With Us) in Las Margaritas and surrounding settlements.  Las Margaritas is about a two hour bus ride from Guatemala City.  However, because of the growth of Guatemala City, Las Margaritas and the parish are becoming a suburb of the city.

Sister Ellen works in building faith community among the people – her work takes her to outlaying

communities which necessitates travel by foot, local buses, or trucks. 
She is also active in the Instituto Technico Experimental Cuidad Quetzal which parents in the parish began over ten years ago to improve the quality of education their children receive.

Si

San Ignacio School in Somotillo educates the children who work on the streets of the city in various jobs – shoe shine boys, tortilla sellers, and so on.  The school is designed around their schedule and provides them with necessary academics and skills to improve themselves.

A high school begun by parents in a remote mountainous area provides education from sixth grade through high school.  Located in Mariitas, the site was chosen because it was centrally located for the farmers in the area.  There is no town there.

In Nicaragua, the average pay is $2 a day.  The average salary for the teachers is $180 a month, while the principal of one of the schools earns $318.98 a month.  The government does not have financial resources to build, staff, or maintain schools.  The task is taken up by organization within the country, groups and organizations in the United States, and individual donors.  Sister Rachel’s ministry is to help find funding and to bring groups together to help the schools.  Her tasks range from speaking with groups to raise funds to making sure students have shoes so they can attend a field trip.

 

Sister Kathleen Curtin, PBVM

Sister Kathleen Curtin, PBVM, continues to work as an advisor to the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist an indigenous Guatemalan religious community.  A young community with few finally professed members, Sister Kathleen has provided invaluable experience of religious life as well as helping them with fundraising in the United States.

One of the Sisters’ projects is the Nueva Esperanza, a home of abandoned elderly women, outside Guatemala City opened in August, 2002.  The home is financed entirely by donations.  The Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist who staff and live at the home, provide a clean, loving atmosphere for about twenty-five elderly women who have no one to care for them and who would die alone if this home did not exist.  The need is great as there are no government resources for the poor elderly in Guatemala. 

For more information about the missionary efforts of the Sisters of the Presentation, please contact Sister Patricia Anne Cloherty, PBVM, at (415) 422-5011 or pacloherty@pbvmsf.org.