Friday, March 16, 2012

Nun's struggles helping Cameroon orphans get focus in Milford gallery


From The Diocese of Bethlehem-

Babies often arrive in taxis at the Good Shepherd Home for Orphans in Cameroon these days, sent by relatives or by anyone who finds them.

But the boy who sparked the idea for the orphanage was found sleeping on the street in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital by Sister Jane Mankaa. She was recently at the Artery Gallery in Milford for a gathering to celebrate a book about her founding of the orphanage — "I Am That Child" by Elizabeth Geitz.

The author is an associate priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Milford. When Mankaa talked to the homeless boy and several others in similar straits, she found they were alone after their parents died of AIDS. Relatives had fed them meagerly and beat them. At the time she was an Episcopalian contemplative nun, and gathering funds to start an orphanage was challenging, she says, as many worried about corruption in Africa. But she persisted. The orphanage that Mankaa began in 2003 is now self-sustaining, guided to success by several failures, which is detailed in Geitz's book.

Geitz was living in Summit, N.J., when Mankaa arrived in nearby Mendham in 2000. Mankaa came from Cameroon to study to become an Anglican nun at the Community of St. John the Baptist. She had arrived with $25 and a wealth of exuberance that Geitz found compelling.

More here-

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120316/NEWS13/203160310/-1/NEWSMAP

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