GSR Today - In its first year, Global Sisters Report has written about how sisters have tackled issues of financial sustainability, from raising goats in Uganda and selling traditional medicines in Vietnam to using public and private funds to build a new kind of community for farmworkers in Florida.

When I was studying the first sisters' communities in the United States, I became aware of the importance of economics in the success or failure of those sisterhoods. Sisters who came from Europe found a culture and economic situation very different from those in Europe. For centuries, convents and monasteries there were financed by wealthy, often noble, patrons, and by the sisters' dowries. In the U.S. there were few wealthy Catholics; most were immigrants on the bottom rungs of society. Few could afford dowries. Congregations that were going to survive had to adjust to the economic conditions in the new nation.

See for Yourself - “I called the cops on my own house,” a breathless friend, Elly, chirped into the phone. “I had to do something to prevent the wrong impression.”

A majority of the Kenyan people have fallen prey to faith healers who charge for miracles, and chances are they do not intend to change in the near future, as long as good medical care is beyond their reach, as long as they can afford only one meal a day, as long as jobs are nowhere to be found despite people’s having an education. They are faced with myriad challenges in life so that they easily give in to what we call in Kenya “fake pastors,” who deceive them and persuade them they are cleansing them of their bewitchment. All these predicaments have left them with only one option of seeking God’s intervention in the face of hard economic times.

"Oh God of all, open the hearts and minds of all your children, that we may learn to nurture rather than destroy our planet."

GSR Today - It is Memorial Day in the United States, and our plastic society makes it easy to think the holiday is set aside as the start of summer, or a day for beer and barbecue or even to thank a veteran. But it’s not.

Sr. Charity Lydia Katongo Nkandu of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi loves working with children. She serves as the education coordinator for the Catholic diocese of Solwezi, an impoverished rural district in northwestern Zambia. But she also recognizes the importance of advocating for children on the world stage, not just in their own communities. Katongo has testified four times about children’s rights in front of various United Nations committees. She recently sat down with Global Sisters Report to reflect on bringing her experiences in the slums of Zambia to the echoing halls of the United Nations.

GSR Today - There are some communities of sisters who spend their days almost exclusively in quiet contemplation and prayer, but the life of a sister today is usually filled with very active service. Here’s a list of 18 ministries that sisters we have written about do. Some might surprise you.

“I am convinced that the desire for peace and fraternity planted deep in the human heart will bear fruit in concrete ways to ensure that nuclear weapons are banned once and for all, to the benefit of our common home.”

In a society where the numbers of nones are on the rise, the number of nuns is declining. I believe it is possible to view the dynamic forces behind both trends as part of the same rapidly changing landscape of religious life and shared socio-political context of increasing inequality, poverty, violence and environmental destruction. This trend and shifting landscape also apply to the wider church, especially given that the number of U.S. Catholics is also declining according to the Pew research.