Mama Hope Magic: Rogue Nun

By Anastasia Juma, Our Lady of Perpetual Support (OLPS), Kisumu, Kenya

A story of selflessness, courage, commitment, and hope.

I.

I have experienced the hills and valleys, the river of my life

but I have learned never to lose hope

because today will not be the same as tomorrow.

~Anastasia Juma Sinawa

I was born in Kisumu County, Kenya. My birthday is the 11th of October, 1959. I have three siblings: a brother and two sisters. I went to school like any other child, until June of 1973. I remember clearly that Wednesday, June 14th — around 10:00 — when my mother died after giving birth to a stillborn baby.

That was the saddest moment.

Everybody was shocked. My brother was in high school, my sister and I were in primary school, and our last born sister was three years old. My father was even more shocked than all of us. He became sick, with a clot in his brain.

Because there was nobody to take care of my siblings, I had to leave school for one year to look after them. My dad was sick, so I had assumed all the responsibilities of my mom. People would leave at 3:30 am to collect water about six kilometers from home. My mom was doing that, like any other woman in our community, and so I did it, as small as I was. After that year, one of my aunts began to care for my siblings so I could go back to school.

When I completed high school, my father wanted me to become an administrator. I went to college to do a course in administration and management. I got three distinctions. But I had been thinking of my own wishes. I wanted to live a religious life. I joined the convent in 1975 and lived that religious life for 21 years, until 1996.

You may want to know the reason why I left.

II.

First, let me go back a bit. In the Convent where I was, people were often coming to me with different problems. They would be sick and turning to witchcraft, but I would tell them instead to go for an HIV test. The tests were often positive.

During those days, to the religious, HIV was a disease of the prostitutes and those who had no self-discipline.

In an effort to keep me away from the HIV positive women, I was transferred to Kisumu to start a pastoral center. But these women followed me, and they increased in number. I was transferred again and my Superior told me, “If you want to go and stay with those prostitutes, you can leave the Convent.”

By that time, I had formed a group of six HIV positive women, meeting twice a month. We had registered as a self-help group so we could support each other. When I was transferred the second time, I knew these women would not be able to reach me.

III.

Then I started thinking: “I am a Franciscan Sister of Saint Anne, and Saint Francis of Assisi who loved the lepers. What is the current leprosy now? We are not seeing many lepers here.” I prayed deeply, and I said, “God, the leprosy that we are experiencing now is HIV and AIDS.”

Every time I was seen talking to somebody, I was called by the Superior who would say “We told you not to talk with those people” and I became frustrated by the ignorance of my sisters and brothers in the church.

During Christmas, I was called more than three times to confirm that I would never talk with HIV positive persons. To me, this was a joke.

When I went to bed that night, I prayed and asked God, “Is this where I should be? Am I in the right place?” I turned to my Bible and opened it randomly. I landed at Jeremiah Chapter 29 Verse 11: Relax, God has good plans for you.

I closed my Bible and I decided I was going to leave because God had good plans for me.

I wrote a letter that I wanted to leave, and I took it to the Superior in the morning. She couldn’t believe it. Her blood pressure rose from the shock, but I stood my ground.

They tried to change my mind, but I knew they wouldn’t change how they treated people with HIV and AIDS.

They gave me two weeks to pray. I stood my ground. The Bishop called me and told me to change my mind. I stood my ground. He gave me a day to pray. I slept in the chapel, and still I stood my ground. At the end of that day I gave him my ring and my habit. I did not want to leave the Convent with these outside symbols of commitment. My commitment to God is in my heart.

When the Superior insisted that I leave in my religious clothes, I said to her: “You have been telling me that HIV is a disease for the prostitutes, and if I want to join them I should leave the Convent. And so I’ve decided, I’m going to join them. I cannot go with a religious habit.” I removed those clothes and I left.

IV.

Where else could I go but to the group of HIV positive people I had formed before?

The money we had was very little, but this group was very strong. Each time we met, we would share 10 shillings, and that amount increased slowly.

When you start a group, you must baptize it with a name. Everyone had ideas for the name, but one particular widow came up and said, “I would like our group to be put under the patronage of the blessed virgin and under the care of Sister Anastasia. No matter how tough it is for me and my children, when I pray I always wake up with new ideas of how to survive. I know even if we are HIV positive, the mother of Jesus will continue to intercede for us.” Eventually, we registered the group as Our Lady of Perpetual Support for People Living with AIDS (OLPS).

Eventually we decided to register as a Non-Governmental Organization. Because some of the women in our group were dying and leaving children behind, we added orphans into our name so we could continue to care for them. We became Our Lady of Perpetual Support for People Living with AIDS and Orphans.

V.

After I had left the Convent, there were other Sisters who also left for one reason or another. For some of them, they had no parents and could not return home. I became a refuge to them, and I am to date.

We decided to start a registered group of nuns when one of the Sisters was found to be HIV positive. Since they didn’t know how to do counseling at the Convent, they took her to her home. They told her mother she was HIV positive and that she had been moving with men so she was no longer welcome at the Convent. She went into depression and was brought to me.

From there, I saw the need to teach the nuns that HIV is not only for the prostitutes because the infection is not only contracted in one way. I sat with nuns from different congregations and we agreed that we would start a group to fight.

Our group is called Dedicated Life Outside the Convent. One of the things we do is talk to the nuns. We collect money and organize trainings so they learn basic knowledge and counseling. In our own way, we also help children who have got nobody. Each one of us cares for some orphans. We also help nuns who leave the Convent who have never had any education. Those of us who are working contribute to send them to college. When they graduate, some go on to work in our organization here, some work in other places, some are teachers, but wherever we are we still meet. We encourage each other, and we are still committed to our vows: service above self.

VI.

When people ask me what is my wealth — I say my number one wealth is the number of children that I have. I have many children. My own that I’ve taken in, and many who live at the OLPS Children’s Rescue Center.

They are the reason for my being alive.

One day, I was going to Nairobi on a bus when I heard women talking about a child who was being molested by her father. I requested that they tell me where this was happening, and they told me. I was told that the father was fierce, so I had to get people who behaved like thugs to go with me.

When we got there, we saw a small girl who needed to go to the hospital. The men I was with had to beat the father for me to take the child — a child who had never seen electricity, who had never gotten into a vehicle, who had never eaten enough. I took her for tests, and fortunately, she was not infected, but she had what they call a behavior disorder.

It was very difficult for her to adjust to her new life. She could not eat normally and did not know how to use a toilet. When it flushed, she cried because she thought she was being killed. And when she saw electricity at night, she said “The sun is still shining here! But it is not burning me”. When I took her to school, she could not understand anything and she was defensive — she would beat other children or bite them.

Over time and through a lot of patience and love she healed and with the support of so many people, she is now the best girl. She’s very good. She is top of her class and she is turning 16 in a month and attends boarding school.

It is so important to have open eyes, an open heart, and an open mind, and the spirit of a giraffe to see far beyond where you stand. If it were not for all these things, I would not have gone there to find her.

She is my joy.

VII.

When I visited communities I would see other children who were severely malnourished. I was touched. I wrote to different friends of mine and asked if they could help us to plant a demonstration garden for the community, so the children could know what the balanced diet is and the women could get the full use of the land to grow crops to sell. And the only person that responded, that was Nyla. And this was magical indeed. She proved to do what the mother had said she would do before she passed on.

Nyla wrote me that recently a young girl named Mimi Rose had reached out to Mama Hope because her mother, Rita Rose, had just passed away. Rita Rose was a passionate gardener so the girl wanted to create a farm in memory of her mother. It just happened that when I had written Nyla asking for help with our garden she had met Mimi Rose the next week. Once again the love of the eternal mother helped nourish women and children in my community. The Rita Rose Garden came to be and it is still standing strong. It is so hot in Kisumu, so dry. But our Rita Rose garden is as if it is raining the whole day.

I know the Rita Rose Garden will always be there. If I’m to die I want to be buried within that farm, it will be a small space, but it will be there. I will be there.

Those are legacies that I will leave behind.

VII.

When I left the Convent, people thought I would be useless outside. I thank God I’m useful.

We now have the HIV positive people that I started with working with OLPS — some are still alive, and their children are now big. They’re doing well. And right now I think we have over 8,000 people who have gone through our care and treatment at the OLPS Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center and Dispensary. They’re doing well and they’re living to support their children and that is a miracle.

Almost 20 years later, I still have standing on my desk at OLPS, a picture with the phrase that sent me from the convent to a new journey of service. Relax, God has good plans for you. Every time I see it I know there is a bigger plan for me and us all. It is one that is good. So I relax, trust and keep going.