Over Fall Break in October,  2014, eight students and two chaperones embarked on the Mother Teresa Project’s first ever domestic mission trip to the Missionaries of Charity’s first ever U.S. home – the Bronx, New York – and to Harlem, where the students were allowed to pray and work alongside Mother Teresa’s Sisters.

Each of the four days began with encountering Jesus at Mass, and then in the different apostolates of the Sisters, including soup kitchen, homeless shelter, street runs, and catechism. Encountering the unconditional love and contagious joy of the Sisters was unforgettable.
One student remarked: “I’d never worked with women before. The women we worked with in Harlem were so open: one woman admitted she was involved in human trafficking. She finally got out and found the Sisters. The Sisters didn’t ask questions; they just loved her. That’s what they do: they simply love and accept people as they are.” – Ericka Nelson, AMU Class of 2015

While in the Bronx, the students had the privilege of meeting Sr. Dorothy (pictured below), the fifth sister to join the Missionaries of Charity. Like many of the Sisters to first join Mother, Sr. Dorothy was one of Mother Teresa’s former Bengali students from her Sisters of Loreto teaching days.   “Meeting Sister Dorothy allowed me to see the beauty in completely surrendering to God. It was beautiful to see someone who lived such a selfless life have so much joy. When I asked Sister Dorothy how I can know God’s will for my life, she told me that God reveals it to us in the deepest desires of our hearts.” – Lucas Fassbender, AMU Class of 2016

Mother Teresa referred to the poverty found in western countries as more difficult to remedy than simple material poverty. She described this of poverty as spiritual, and experience of “profound loneliness . . . of being as a spiritual poverty, wherein one feels “profound loneliness . . . of being unwanted, unloved, uncared for” (Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s Speech to the National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, DC, February 3, 1994). This first-ever domestic immersion trip to New York was a wonderful opportunity for our students to encounter poverty in the midst of a great American city, and to serve the poor, wherever we find them.