Even when she was a third-grader in my catechism class in the Tanzanian village of Butiama, it seemed that God touched the Sister next to me in the photo above. Bernadette never missed Mass on Sunday, though it meant walking eight miles each way in the scorching sun. And it was God's grace that helped her overcome the obstacles on the road to the key role she now plays in the Shinyanga diocese. She was number one student in the district and won a scholarship to one of Tanzania's few girls' secondary schools. Instead, she asked to join the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa, founded by Maryknoll.

Her older brother, Rubere, was raging mad because he feared losing the 10 to 15 cows his family would receive when she married. It is a custom of the Zanaki people for a man to give the animals to the household of his bride. To resolve the conflict, I suggested Bernadette accept her scholarship and put off entering the convent until she was older. What a terrible mistake! Rubere tried to force Bernadette to live with a man. When she refused, he beat her so badly she was hospitalized, with the optic nerve of one eye apparently severed. Rubere was put in jail. But his sister said, "Tell my brother I forgive him."

Bernadette came to live at our mission. After a few weeks, she could see out of the damaged eye. An amazed doctor said, "I was convinced she would be blind in that eye for life, but it appears her eyesight is quite normal."

Bernadette continued her education, but after her second year, came to me pleading, "I want to be a Sister." She joined the Immaculate Heart Sisters and took Willemina as her religious name. When she made her final vows, Rubere, in a remarkable turnaround, gave her a special gift, a cow.

Sister Willemina, now director of catechetics for the diocese of Shinyanga, has been serving the Church for more than 30 years.

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Maryknollers in Musoma, Tanzania