This story appears in the LCWR 2017 feature series. View the full series.

LCWR 2017 - A familiar Spanish saying defines the experience and worldview of Sr. Teresa Maya: Ni de aquí, ni de allá ("from neither here nor there"). A Mexican-American Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word, she transitions to become president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious on Aug. 11, the final night of its annual assembly.

Over the past six years, Sr. Martina Leaka has helped more than 60 young people in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, find meaning in their lives and has prepared them for adulthood by training them at a center called Porter's House. There, they learn skills that enable them to be self-reliant, including sewing and baking products sold across the city.

Updated: During her decades of ministry, the Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a champion for the collaborative form of leadership that has become indicative of LCWR and of women religious in the United States.

by Clare Nolan

NCR Contributor

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Malaysia is the destination country of thousands of migrant persons known as Rohingya, an ethnic group long settled but denied citizenship in their birth country of Myanmar. The Rohingya ethnicity implies Muslim religious identification, making them a double minority in Myanmar. This column reflects the experiences of our Good Shepherd Sisters' shelters in Malaysia, giving a small glimpse of the vast perils and occasional small victories of the human spirit told through stories.