Sisters of Providence in the Philippines, a Mission is Born.

The first of August 1989, a new Providence Mission in the Philippines was born. Providence of God, I thank you for all.

From March 19 to 22, a discernment session took place in Portland, Oregon, to select the first fie missionaries. The members of the three provincial councils participated in the session with fifteen of the sisters who had volunteered for the mission. At the end of the process, the missionaries chosen were Sisters Renate Hayum and Linda Jo Reynolds from Sacred Heart Province, and Sisters Clarella Fink, Fidela Adriano, and Lina Afinidad from St. Ignatius Province.

The mission in the Philippines was a new experience in more than one way. Unlike other missions, in Africa and Haiti for example, where the sisters worked in the villages, the sisters here established themselves in an urban setting. Everywhere else, the missionary project had been in response to the invitation for church authorities in the country. In the Philippines, the initiative came from a group of sisters of Filipina origin who belonged to one or other of the three provinces of western Canada and the United States. At the time when the project took shape, Sister Gloria Keylor was provincial superior in Edmonton, Sister Barbara Schamber in Seattle, and Sister Kathryn Rutan in Spokane.

(From the book Adventurers in the Shadow by Denise Robillard)