Felician Sister Maria Bakhita Waweru
I am a student because I am a sister,” says Felician Sister Maria Bakhita Waweru. Seeing her own hands as an extension of Christ’s hands, Sr. Bakhita wants to “give God to everybody” through her work as a nurse, ministering both physically and spiritually to those who are sick and need a healing touch. It doesn’t matter whether a patient is Christian or not. Sr. Bakhita knows that she carries God with her into each patient’s room. She trusts that her faith will be evident. She expects that each person she encounters will see in her somebody who reminds them of God.
Born and raised in Kenya, Sr. Bakhita speaks Swahili, Kikuyu (her native language), Spanish, Tzotzil (a Mexican dialect) and English, with a softly lilting voice. From a young age, she wanted to be a sister, and she became one of Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity in 1999. In 2015, she became a Felician Sister because she “wanted to do more.”
In her previous role, she traveled from her native Kenya to do missionary work in Mexico for five years. She loved pastoral care, and by observation learned some basic nursing skills — but she yearned for a chance to do more. She knew that becoming a Felician Sister would give her a chance to return to school, so she talked to her superiors, prayed a lot and eventually transferred to the Felician community. Now she is both a Felician Sister and a full-time nursing student at Madonna University in Livonia, MI.
Her work is academically challenging, but her sisters support and cheer for her through her classes and her clinicals. She believes that the prayers of her sisters have helped her to succeed academically —and she looks forward to finishing her degree.
Just as dry grass is sensitive to fire, Sr. Bakhita knows that a person who is in the hospital is sensitive to the presence of God. As a nurse and a sister, when she goes into a patient’s room, she can care for that person’s physical and spiritual needs. She carries God with her always, so she doesn’t need to evangelize with words. Her presence and faith provide the kind of holistic care that heal and comfort those most in need, as she approaches her work with true devotion.
