Kauai, Nov 24, 2022: The arrival of three Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians from India has answered the 22-year long prayers of the parishioners and parents of a Catholic school in Hawaii for the return of nuns to their school. On October 7 their prayers were answered.

They arrived at Lihue airport to assume involvement in parish ministry at St. Catherine of Alexandria Church and School in Kapaa, Kauai. They are Sisters Jincy Thomas from the southern India state of Kerala; Rachel Marius from the northeastern India state of Manipur; and Philisita Jyrwa from the northeastern India state of Meghalaya.

The sisters were warmly greeted by St. Catherine’s administrator Father Nicholas Apetorgbor and parochial vicar Father Dario Rinaldi, and with more leis of aloha from about a dozen parishioners.

The three sisters expand the community’s Hawaii mission to seven members. Four others serve on Oahu.

Sister Thomas is the school’s new principal. Sister Marius is the homeroom teacher for grades five and six. Sister Jyrwa directs the preschool and teaches religion in grade two. All three were involved in education and pastoral ministry before they came to Hawaii.

Hawaii is the first foreign mission for all three of the nuns who come from different provinces of the same religious congregation in India.

“We did not get to know each other until we came together in our generalate house,” Sister Thomas in told the Hawaii Catholic Herald in November.

Sister Jyrwa said that “coming such a far distance, there were some anxieties.”

Sister Marius agreed. “Yes, what would Hawaii be like? What would its culture be like? Its educational system? Once we reached Hawaii however, we found the people so welcoming and so loving. There is already a sense of belongingness here.”

Sister Thomas said they have to learn the new educational system. “But we are slowly getting into it, adapting and learning about the functioning of the school and what the students and their parents expect.”

Sister Jyrwa said the students have not seen religious for a long time. “Sometimes they ask about our habits.”

Sister Marius said the students are “curious about our life, and whether in hot weather we have something else to wear.”

Sister Thomas said the students now come to us and talk to them freely since they see nuns every day. “We don’t seem so strange anymore.”

The sisters were concerned their accent and foreign terminology might hinder communication.

“However, all is fine,” said Sister Marius. “It becomes a welcome learning for us.”

“All in all,” said Sister Jyrwa, “it is nice to feel comfortable with people here and to know they feel comfortable with us. Seeing the smiles on parents’ faces is really nice.”

Their congregation was founded in Guwahati, the commercial capital of Assam, in 1942, by Salesian Bishop Stephen Ferrando. The community is dedicated to the service of the poor, especially the less privileged and marginalized of society. It ministers in six provinces in India, has a delegation in Italy and a mission in Africa. Four of its sisters live in a convent in Aiea and engage in parish and hospice ministry.

St. Catherine School was blessed in 1946 and first staffed by the Sisters of Mercy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1969, the Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary assumed staffing of the school until 2000.

Kauai is more than 190 km northwest of Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii, is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about 3,200 km from the U.S. mainland. It is the only US state that is an archipelago.

Hawaii comprises nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago, 137 volcanic islands spanning 2,400 km that are part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania.

With 1.4 million residents Hawaii ranks 13th in population density among the US state. It has the country’s only Asian American plurality, its largest Buddhist community, and the largest proportion of multiracial people. Consequently, it is a unique melting pot of North American and East Asian cultures, in addition to its indigenous Hawaiian heritage.

(With inputs from Dominican Sister Malia Dominica Wong’s report in hawaiicatholicherald.com)