The 3Ms Return to Malawi

(CSM Associates Peggy Bruce and Hattie Irish accompanied the Malawian Sisters on their return home. The following is their account of the trip.)

On the first Sunday in September, after an 18-hour flight and 8,500 miles from New York, the three Sisters arrived at Lilongwe, Malawi, with eighteen pieces of baggage and two escorts. All of us were heartily greeted at the airport by Bishop Christopher Boyle and many family members of the Sisters. Sr. Monica, Sr. Maria Nema, and Sr. Martha have been away twenty to thirty-six months. We then had a four-hour ride in two four-wheeled vehicles: one for the passengers and one for all the baggage crammed with chapel and household items needed for the new convent.

Another enthusiastic welcome by more than fifty people—many members of the Mothers’ Union, a women’s guild promoting Christian family life—awaited us in Mzuzu, the See city of the Diocese of Northern Malawi. The ladies were singing and dancing, clapping and clicking their tongues, gaily dressed in colorful “chitenjes” and the blue-and-white uniform of the Mothers’ Union.

The next morning after Matins and Mass, we rode six kilometers from town on dirt roads to the new St. Mary’s Convent. Red brick used in the Convent was made from the soil of a huge ant hill on the site. Decorated ironwork secures the windows in the two buildings that compose the first phase of construction. One building holds the Chapel, refectory and a kitchen which will have an electric stove and refrigerator. The other contains the enclosure for the Sisters with their cells, a good-size workroom, and also an office and parlor for receiving guests.

Sisters Martha, Maria Nema, and Monica inspecting the new Convent buildings with the supervisor of works and the foreman

When we arrived, the walls, floors, and windows were installed and being painted. The Bishop remarked that he was delighted with the Sisters’ arrival before everything was complete so that they could be able to choose the furnishings they would need. Some items were brought from the US, larger items (beds, and appliances) had been purchased, dishes and other things were given as gifts, but we all went to the open-air market to purchase wooden spoons to stir the nsima, a corn flour dish in the daily Malawian diet.

The sisters buying sweet potatoes in the Mzuzu market

The area where the Convent is located, called Luwinga, is green with mountains in the distance, banana, mango, and avocado trees. Later when the bush is cleared, the Sisters will plant a “bio-intensive” garden. A handsome red-brick hen house is already in place.

View from the kitchen porch across the yard toward the hen house

Later that day, the Mothers’ Union held a two-hour long “welcome home” tea for the Sisters and us “the honored guests.” The President of the Mothers’ Union welcomed us in English and the national language, Chichewa. Each of us was called upon for remarks given in our language and translated into the other. Sister Monica, speaking for the 3Ms who had collaborated in writing her speech, humbly but proudly told the gathering of their work in Peekskill, showing their Mapemphero a Monastiki—the book of worship patterned after the American Sisters’ Monastic Diurnal Revised. The Sisters had translated this Diurnal painstakingly into Chichewa and hard-bound it by hand. The audience showed how proud it was of their “daughters’ ” accomplishments with singing and dancing and a presentation of a large gift of food. Bishop Boyle explained, as he had the first day, that the main purpose of the Sisters’ life in the Diocese would be prayer. In his gracious remarks he said, “The Mothers’ Union is the backbone of the Diocese, and the Sisters are now the heart.”

Local women singing their welcome

Wherever we traveled in the Diocese, we were inspired by the spirituality of the people—Jesus shines in their eyes!

Local children

“Zikomo” to all, Peggy Bruce & Hattie Irish, Associates & Escorts