My Journey To Cameroon
In April of 2001, my life was shattered by the loss of my husband, Greg Rose, a wonderful, compassionate, and generous man. When he first died, I felt nothing but the void in my life. Then, with the help of the mighty and gentle Franciscan Sisters at Milwaukee’s Saint Ann Center, I began to see that it wasn’t a void, but a doorway.
The Sisters invited me to accompany them to Bafut, Cameroon, where they run a medical center and home, and Saint Joseph’s Girls Vocational High School. I went….and my journey begun.
I helped the Sisters minister to the sick, handicapped, and the students at Saint Joseph’s. I was privileged to share their food and sleeping pallets, their dawns and dusk. My ears still recall the students going about their tasks, singing joyously to face economic adversity and despair.
Cameroon and Bafut represent an agonizing litany of needs. For better education. Better health. Better standards of living for women and children especially. I left full of wonder and question. Noting how different we are, yet how similar in the many things that pull us daily onward despite hardship.
I brought the spirit of Bafut with me when I returned, and made fulfilling the needs of Saint Joseph’s my mission. The Saint Ann Center has a not-for-profit organization set up to benefit Cameroon, and the Sisters invited me to collaborate with them. Through this partnership, I’ve found a way to fill the heart that was so empty after losing Greg.
Wherever you are in your life journey, please join me on mine. Educating the girls at Saint Joseph’s is another way the heal the world’s voids.
Love,
Mary Rose
The Sisters invited me to accompany them to Bafut, Cameroon, where they run a medical center and home, and Saint Joseph’s Girls Vocational High School. I went….and my journey begun.
I helped the Sisters minister to the sick, handicapped, and the students at Saint Joseph’s. I was privileged to share their food and sleeping pallets, their dawns and dusk. My ears still recall the students going about their tasks, singing joyously to face economic adversity and despair.
Cameroon and Bafut represent an agonizing litany of needs. For better education. Better health. Better standards of living for women and children especially. I left full of wonder and question. Noting how different we are, yet how similar in the many things that pull us daily onward despite hardship.
I brought the spirit of Bafut with me when I returned, and made fulfilling the needs of Saint Joseph’s my mission. The Saint Ann Center has a not-for-profit organization set up to benefit Cameroon, and the Sisters invited me to collaborate with them. Through this partnership, I’ve found a way to fill the heart that was so empty after losing Greg.
Wherever you are in your life journey, please join me on mine. Educating the girls at Saint Joseph’s is another way the heal the world’s voids.
Love,
Mary Rose
(Video-2010)