Book Review: Doing small things with great love

Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe has lived her consecrated vocation in the vein of Saint Mother Teresa, doing small things with great love.
 
These small things, like welcoming girls who escaped captivity in war-torn Northern Uganda, led to big things: the founding of a vocational school for these young women and girls, and childcare for their children. Then, a second vocational school, daycare and orphanage in another Ugandan location.
 
From Liturgical Press’s People of God Series, “Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe: Sewing Hope in Uganda” by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda introduces the reader to this holy woman, whose life is a life amidst the turbulence of recent decades in northern Uganda. The book provides the background to begin to grasp the history of the Church in this part of the world as well as the unsettling violence that exploded in the 1970s after simmering for decades.
 
In her early days as a sister, the violence was perpetrated by rebels and government soldiers alike, from stealing cattle and plundering the convent to setting fire to houses and random killing. As time wore on, the power of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army grew, along with an extreme brutality that centered on kidnapping children and forcing them to kill or be killed.
 
Sister Rosemary responded to the situation around her with love, kindness, caution and intelligence. She completed her schooling, including midwifery training, as a military coup overthrew the government. Her first assignment was in the town of Moyo, where she ran the dispensary, made all urgent medical decisions, and delivered the babies of soldiers (at times, by flashlight). After a few years, she returned to Gulu to further her education.
 
Stealing, plundering, kidnapping and killing became common as well as soldiers walking into the school. At times, her previous medical services kept the sisters safe. A rebel soldier who she had treated in Moyo warned her of coming attacks. After three years amidst increasing brutality, the sisters decided to close the school. Sister Rosemary spent the next few years studying in southern Uganda and leading her community as provincial superior.
 
In 2001, Sister Rosemary was asked to return to Gulu in northern Uganda, to run the Saint Monica’s Tailoring School for Girls. She was taken aback by the assignment, still haunted by her time there years earlier and afraid to return to the hostility still present in the area. She consulted a spiritual mentor and friend, Fr. Luigi, who told her, “Rosemary, this is the moment and you are the person to be there.”
 
In time, his words proved to be prophetic, for it was here that her life’s work took off. Shortly after taking over the school, she noticed some of the girls were withdrawn and unable to interact with their fellow students. One day, she had the opportunity to ask one of these girls about the cause for her behavior. The girl told her that she had lived with the rebels for nine years and killed many people. She didn’t think the others would understand.
 
Sister Rosemary began to consider what it meant to have a “returnee” living at the school. These returnees had been taken by the rebels and escaped; they were both victims of the violence and ex-soldiers, perpetuators of the violence in the “kill or be killed” realty imposed by the rebels.
 
These girls often came with their children, born of that same violence after being given as “prizes” for the LRA soldiers. They lived for years in the chaos of the rebel group without parents or boundaries and little idea of how to re-integrate into society.
 
From here, the sisters invited all girls who had escaped from captivity to come to Saint Monica’s, along with their children. By the end of the first year, 200 girls enrolled. They learned the practical skill of sewing, giving them a skill to offer others.
 
Most of all, they learned their own value through the love and compassion shown by Sister Rosemary’s motherly love. The work with returnees grew, in part due to the help of an Oklahoma lawyer, Reggie Whitten, who founded the non-profit Pros for Africa to help the sisters, both monetarily and physically, donating money and building on trips.
 
The biography weaves together the story of Sister Rosemary, anecdotes illustrating her courage and faith, and the spirituality driving Sister Rosemary’s work. It provides a powerful introduction to this formidable woman whose great works have stemmed from her small choices of love.
 
Anamaria Biddick is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic and daughter of award-winning Oklahoma author, Maria Scaperlanda.