…so this will always be your home.
Sister Raphael Ann Drone may be known affectionately as “old Ma” in Liberia, but for now she represents the present and future of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ there. The 69-year-old came home in 2011 for the funeral of her sister, Marge. Before heading back to Liberia, she spoke about her ministry and what it means to the people she serves to have an ASC back in their land.
She resides and works on the grounds of St. Dominic Parish in the city of Bomi. Sister Raphael Ann has served there as a lay associate with the Society of Missionaries for Africa since January 2010, some 18 years after five American Adorers were murdered in that country. She lives with two SMA lay associates, Rachel Gillman of Tampa, Fla., and Jackie Madden of Houston.
The people of Liberia, she said, “don’t see me as Sister Raphael Ann, they see me as ASC.” She recalled one occasion when a man told her, “’You never can leave here because your Sisters’ blood is in our ground, so this will always be your home.’ I think they feel that way,” she said, “and I will always feel at home there and welcome. We are a reminder to them that they are worth our lives and our effort here and that we’re willing to still help out and support them in their struggles.” The ASCs represent the gifts of hope and presence to Liberians, she said. People still tell her, “’Many people had to run, but your Sisters did not run.’”
The only vowed woman religious in Bomi, Sister Raphael Ann reports to Father Gareth Jenkins, SMA, of England. He is pastor of St. Dominic and heads the deanery in which she serves. Father Garry has been in Liberia for 37 years and is two years younger than her, Sister Raphael Ann noted. He is known all over Liberia because he was kidnapped during Liberia’s civil war and survived to tell about it. He has come face-to-face with death many times, she said.
Father Garry’s deanery covers a three-county area. It includes more than 80 outstations, or small parishes. With only six priests in the entire deanery, some parishes have not seen a priest for months, Sister Raphael Ann said. Travel and transportation are never easy, she noted. For example, to get to the Belle Forest Region, the farthest point from the deanery headquarters, a person must cross about 103 bridges, both large and small, “most of them so-so bridges made of felled trees.” When the mission trucks go “up” country to visit several small, but growing parishes, the drive is most difficult. It can be scary, especially on the roads into the forest, she said. A big fear is the trees will fall over during a storm onto the road. When traveling on these roads, the mission trucks carry cement, building materials, two mechanics, a power saw and operator, workers, catechists and more. At each bridge, only the driver stays inside the truck. A “guide” goes in front and directs the driver across the rickety, narrow structures. Though the trip is not long by distance, “every mile tortures the trucks and the riders,” she said. A new Toyota pickup lasts only about a year, Sister Raphael Ann estimated, and after each trip, major repairs to the vehicle often are needed. Another route to the outlying parishes is taken during the rainy season. The mission trucks drive for five to six hours, and then the occupants walk for another 18 hours to get to the parishes. It can be “very adventuresome,” she said, tongue in cheek. Liberia, she explained, “is kind of wet. We get 208 inches of rain every year, compared to 54 inches in the Midwest. That’s a lot of rain. When it rains here, it rains. When it rains in the Midwest, by comparison, it’s a sprinkle.”
New churches and schools are being built as the Catholic Church grows in Liberia, Sister Raphael Ann continued. These new Church communities need trained church leaders and catechists. That is where she comes in, she said. Before her, Adorer Sister Antoinette Cusimano worked to train catechists and leaders for several years before the war broke out. Many of the people Sister Antoinette served disappeared or died during and after the war, but there are many others who knew and loved Sister Antoinette and still ask about her, Sister Raphael Ann said. She added that Sister Antoinette used to travel from village to village, often by car, “but there is no car available now, less money and few good roads into the villages.”