"Her prompt and efficient intervention saved us," says one fisherman, home in India after being detained in Iran. In her 15 years in Tamil Nadu's coastal towns, Sr. Josephine Amala Valarmathi of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary has handled scores of cases for Indian migrant workers. She has also made it her priority to organize awareness programs to help such workers avoid exploitation.

"I'm happy to be here because the people need us. Sometimes you get there, there's no road — you have to create the road for yourself. … It's a kind of joy, you know."

The campaign will "look at the change of gender roles in the workplace, these antiquated views of who needs to be working, who has to work and who should be working."

Notes from the Field - Wherever your service leads you — in an office, in a classroom, at a meeting, or on a train ride home — don't lose sight of what is always at stake: real people's lives.

I had been thinking, "Too much poverty, too much pain, too much pollution, I don't want to look, I don't want to know. How can we go forward with all this?" A trip to Peru taught me to dare to create beauty.

"To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower; hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour."

Sr. Kateri Mitchell played a role in the miracle that cemented St. Kateri Tekakwitha's sainthood cause. For two decades, Mitchell has served as executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference, an annual gathering for those ministering to Native American Catholics.

Several factors have kept African women away from the field of biblical studies. But a new day dawns for women's biblical scholarship in Africa, and with it comes the chance to improve everyday grassroots theology for both women and men throughout the continent.

"Some days we just have to take our lumps, even if they cause us to slip — or freeze."

It's that time of year again: the beginning, the time for taking stock and making resolutions. What great things has God done in me and what would God like to do for and in me this coming year?