The How and the Why of it...

In 1996, I packed up and headed off to India and met Mother Teresa. The previous summer, while visiting my friend Margie one day, she received a phone call from our mutual friend, Miriam. I could tell from Margie’s side of the conversation that something exciting was brewing. Margie was smiling and nodding, piquing my curiosity. She asked Miriam to hang on a moment. Steph? she asked. Miriam is going to India in January to work with Mother Teresa. Want to go? After deeply pondering the question for – oh, about 3 seconds, I casually said sure. It was no more noteworthy than if I had just accepted an invitation to go to the movies. It just seemed like the right thing to do and the right time to do it. And so, after a few weeks of pinching myself to make sure it was real and convincing my family that I had not completely lost my mind, we started preparing. Miriam and I started getting the required shots, gathering the things we would need and making the travel arrangements.

Miriam and I spent several weeks working in some of the homes run by the Missionaries of Charity. My time in Calcutta ultimately presented my life’s vocation to me on a chapatti platter, though years would pass before I would awaken to it. This is the story of my travels, the seemingly instantaneous “dark night” that came upon me while in India (which I now see as the culmination of a lot of strain and loss from the years that led up to it) and the subsequent painful years-long climb out of that pit.

It has been over a decade since my return from India, and during that time my life has taken some pretty sharp turns and hairpin curves. The journey, while at times so agonizing I thought I wouldn’t make it through the day, has certainly not been without its joys and triumphs!

Until tomorrow...

Steph