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INTERNATIONAL: Latest aid payments from UK office include milking cows for Sisters in India
By John Newton
Sisters in India with milking cows, which enable them to sell dairy products to support themselves
When Sisters in India came up with a plan to offer some milk of human kindness, Aid to the Church in Need was happy to oblige… with a little help from a few four-legged friends.
A grant for three milking cows for Rosarian Sisters in Kerala, southern India, was among a long and varied list of aid payments announced this month by the UK office of the charity.
The cows will enable the contemplative Sisters at Saint Teresa’s Convent in Trivandrum to retail milk and other dairy products to help fund the care of elderly nuns who are sick or bed-ridden.
The Rosarian Order’s provincial superior, Sister Lissy Tresa, wrote to Aid to the Church in Need: “We solely depend on your generosity… We assure you of our daily prayers in a special way.”
Funds for the cows are among a series of aid payments from Aid to the Church in Need’s UK office this month.
The grants focus on help for Sisters, especially in Eastern Europe.
These include assistance for sick and elderly nuns in Poland and Belarus, support for Sisters in the Archdiocese of Moscow, Russia, and others doing pastoral work in the Diocese of Kiev, Ukraine.
In many of the former Communist countries Aid to the Church in Need’s help is vital to strengthen a Church that was suppressed by the authorities for generations.
The charity is also helping the Evangelising Sisters of Mary in Kenya work to towards being self-sufficient, as well as supporting their novices.
Aid to the Church in Need UK also supported more than a dozen Church building projects worldwide.
These included helping Kenya’s diocese of Bissau finish building a chapel and repairs on the Conception Nuns’ convent chapel in Bolivia, as well as four other chapels in Ethiopia.
There was also funding for youth work in Cuba, formation for priests and seminarians in countries including Poland and Mexico, new transport to help priests reach far flung parts of their parishes in Ghana and Belarus, and water pumps for a parish in Senegal.
Aid to the Church in Need's UK Director Neville Kyrke-Smith said: “The milk of human kindness is what we rely upon and it is fantastic to see how the friends and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need have enabled us to offer compassion and help around the world.”
Read more about Aid to the Church in Need’s key projects