Sister Nirmala arrives in Nepal
Sister Mary Nirmala MC, 77, the successor of Mother Teresa as the head of the Missionaries of Charity (MC) of Kolkata, arrived Jhapa in eastern Nepal on Friday.
Born in Nepal, it is her first visit to Nepal after she was announced the successor to Nobel laureate Mother Teresa in 1997. She visited Nepal earlier in 1988 and 1996. She will be visiting Pokhara where Fr. Oki will be donating a plot for a new branch of MC.
She visited her sisters' house in Dhulabari and stayed there distributing lockets, posters with messages of Mother Teresa and logos for almost one-and-half hour. She also gave a speech on peace and harmony and urged all concerned to give up egoistic notions. Frank and easy-going Nirmala quickly became familiar with locals in her sister’s neighbourhood who gathered to meet her.
Born as Nirmala Joshi in a Nepali Brahmin family, she converted to Catholicism and dedicated her life to the poor at the age of 24. She met Mother Teresa in Calcutta in the spring of 1958, when she was 23 years old, and asked to be admitted to the Catholic Church. She was one of the earliest to join the Missionaries of Charity and headed its Latin American network in the 70s. She is the daughter of Mahananda Joshi, an Army officer and Mohini.
Missionaries of Charity now has around 4,600 dedicated volunteers, popularly known as sisters, and runs 569 centers in 131 countries. nepalnews.com ia Jan14 06
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