Persistence

It all began with an interview by Father Sean O’Malley, OFM, of IHM Sister Mary Martha Gardiner. Father Sean had determined that an American wouldn’t know how to identify with Spanish-speaking people, therefore, Sister didn’t receive the sought-after job at the Spanish Catholic Center in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. This was before sister went to Peru as a missionary in Lima and the Andes mountains.

Sister had been a nurse before she entered the IHM Congregation, but her first assignments had been teaching, which she loved. But one day she said to herself, “I want to nurse.” As luck (or God’s plan) would have it, she met Sister Michael Marie Hartman, stationed in Peru, who asked if she had ever considered volunteering for a mission in Peru.   

The IHM Sisters went to Lima in 1965 to teach in an elementary school in Lima and soon realized that the health situation was pathetic for many of the poor families in their neighborhood: no water system, no sanitary conditions, no medical care. So Mother Beata permitted Mary Martha to join the sisters in Lima. After meeting with the pastor, she saw that what was needed was a clinic to address the health care needs of the many poor people who were guarding the houses of the rich that were being built in the area. She set up a clinic in the basement of the church with volunteer physicians and began doing house visits. Soon she discovered many children whose families had come from the mountains. They were malnourished, having diarrhea, and were dying of dehydration. But she also asked, Why? What were the root problems for such misery?

The answer revealed itself when she took a three-day trip to the mountains by bus, truck, and on foot with Sister Joel Marie Sheehe. The plan was to return two little children, who had recovered from tuberculosis, to their mother.  She saw the pressing needs of the Quechua people in the remote villages and said, “This is where I want to be.” In the town of Yanaoca in 1975, in the Diocese of Sicuani, Mary Martha and Joel Marie began preparing people to be catechists and health promoters in each village. She also invited a team of American dentists to come for a week at a time. While there, they taught the health promoters how to administer Novocain and to pull teeth. The dentists were amazed at how skilled the health promoters were at extractions, and for three years, the dentists chose to return for a week of service and instruction.

Twelve years later Mary Martha returned to the U.S.  She went with Sister Anne Munley again to seek a position in the clinic in the Spanish Catholic Center in Washington, D.C. The same Father O’Malley was still in charge. This time, she got the job!

Sister believed that one must not just “look” but “see.” The darkness she saw was a wasting of time on the part of people who were coming to Washington from distances in Maryland for services. “Let’s put a center in Maryland,” she said to administrators, and for 17 years, she served the people there in Maryland. She went door to door asking for volunteer doctors. And they came, all cultures, all religions, all races—the doctors came. One day she learned of a young man who was a double amputee. He was sent home from the hospital to his brother’s house, as there was no money for any kind of residential care or for prostheses. She visited the home and he came, without legs, bouncing down the stairs! A few phone calls and one prothesis was secured. He had to come up with the cost of the other one. He did!

Mary Martha saw the need to improve the dental care for the poor that was offered at the center. So she invited Sister Janice Heisey, IHM, a high school science teacher, to come and set up a dental clinic. “I don’t know anything about dentistry,” said Janice. Nor did she know any Spanish. “You can do it,” said Mary Martha. And Sister Janice came and set up the dental clinic and did it for 34 years! Along with some volunteer dentists, Sister Janice secured the services of the Howard University Dental School students, who took care of all the dental needs of those who came to the clinic. She used to tell people who asked if she knew Spanish, “I speak dental Spanish.”

St. Francis of Assisi is supposed to have said, “Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” In the case of these two sisters, when they saw darkness in the absence of needed care for the poor, they opened their hearts and used their gifts to bring the light of urgent care to those in need. And so much that seemed impossible became a reality.

Sister Ancilla Maloney recently returned from 12 years of missionary work in Sicuani, Peru. Currently she is volunteering at St. Francis Kitchen and Friends of the Poor/Catherine McAuley Center in Scranton, PA. Sister also serves as an oral historian for the IHM Archives Office.