The prevalence of Hansen's disease in Vietnam has dropped to less than one case per 10,000 people since 1995, when lepers began getting access to free treatment with multi-drug therapy; however, people who do fall ill are marginalized from society and left without much support. In Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces, some Lovers of the Holy Cross sisters have spent the past 10 years bringing food, medical assistance, improved housing and companionship to a third of the 420 people living isolated and difficult lives here.

"There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life."

GSR Today - Women religious were represented at the Academy Awards on Sunday. “Ida,” a movie about a novice nun in the ‘60s that we have mentioned in this column frequently in recent months, won the Oscar for best foreign language film. It became the first Polish movie to ever win the award. We start this week’s round-up with more Oscars week wrap-up.

Every morning you have to wake up and say yes! That’s one of the single most quoted pieces of advice I got in the lead up to my first profession of vows. No one promised me the road ahead would be smooth, nor did they say that my first year of profession would be easy. To be honest, among all the other pieces of advice I received, the admonition that I’d need to say yes everyday seemed like a euphemistic response to the question of what it means to live a vowed life. Yet, just six months later I found myself sitting across the table from an acquaintance saying just that.

Service marks the action of religious sisters in almost all part of the world. Service, especially to the “least of my people,” validates the sisters’ vocation and reinforces their relevance in a church that limits women’s participation in significant decision-making positions. Service given to residents of Compassion Center in Port Harcourt has greatly enriched the local community. A ministry of the Religious Sisters of Charity, the center aims to educate and rehabilitate each child according to his or her needs.

See for Yourself - At health fair day at the mall, I grab a seat on a bench and check emails on my phone. I rarely go to the mall and just happened to pick today – health fair day. That explains why it was tough finding a parking place. It wasn’t long before an older lady sat down next to me on the bench. Her health fair goodie bag was getting heavy and she needed a rest.

Sr. Jane Wanjiru is the Kenya coordinator for a program that utilizes sisters working as early childhood educators to help the country’s 150 congregations reflect on their strengths and weaknesses to improve sisterhood there. "We learned that sisters do not learn from each other." Her work is changing that.

Catholic sisters have always gone to minister where the people are: they’ve crossed prairies and oceans, entered slums and prison cells, healed the sick and taught children, prayed with and counseled those discerning big decisions. In today’s global culture linked by digital media, the people instead can come to the sisters, especially Srs. Julie Vieira and Maxine Kollasch, whose brainchild, A Nun’s Life Ministry, is an online gathering place for thousands of users from all over the world.

"For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."