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Nun makes AIDS
patients her mission
By DAVID YONKE, BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Once every six months or so, Sister Rose Bernard Groth throws a
"Celebrate Life" party at the Sisters of Notre Dame's mission in
Papua New Guinea.
"We decorate it with balloons, serve refreshments, play music,
people dance. It's a wonderful time," said Sister Rose, a Toledo
native who has been a missionary since 1964.
The Celebrate Life parties are for people with HIV and AIDS, to
give them hope and let them know they are not alone, and that
someone - if nobody else, then at least Sister Rose - cares about
them.
"We try to do it every six months. They are really happy people
and it lifts their spirits when they know someone cares for them,
that someone loves them," she said.
Each party is for up to 65 people, the maximum number the nuns'
facility can accommodate. But by the time the next Celebrate Life
party comes around, 15 to 20 of those people have died, Sister
Rose said,
Sister Rose said she knew when she was a first-grade pupil at St.
Ann's Elementary School that she wanted to be a nun and that she
wanted to be a missionary.
"I don't know how I knew. But I knew," she said with a twinkle in
her eye.
Feisty and straightforward by nature, she never wavered from that
calling.
After joining the Toledo province of the Sisters of Notre Dame and
earning an education degree from Mary Manse College, she moved to
Papua New Guinea with the thought that she would never leave that
Pacific island nation.
SISTERS OF NOTRE DAME MISSION : The Toledo nuns established
a school and pastoral ministry in Papua New Guinea in 1961.
Zoom | Photo Reprints Although she does come back to the United
States once every five years or so, the 76-year-old sister has
spent the last 42 years of her life ministering to the people of
Papua New Guinea.
She was back in Toledo for a few months, staying at the Sisters of
Notre Dame's provincial house on Secor Road, before leaving for
the mission field earlier this week.
"I went over as a primary school teacher, then a high school
teacher," said Sister Rose, who learned to speak fluent Melanesian
Pidgin English, the prevailing dialect in the region.
"We started a vocational center for girls whose education
otherwise would be terminated after sixth grade. I've worked in
prison ministry, and pastoral ministry. ..."
Since 1990, the nun has been focusing most of her efforts on
helping people with HIV and the AIDS virus.
"It was the furthest thing from my mind when I went there," she
said. "But that's how the Lord leads you. Just be open when the
needs come."
Sister Rose said she read an article in Time magazine in 1985
about the AIDS crisis in Africa, and feared that the disease was
something she should learn more about.
"I knew that if it came here, it would spread like wildfire," she
said.
Although 22 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, she said
the natives "don't have much of a religious background."
Polygamy is legal, promiscuity is common, and there is a local
superstition, called sanguma, in which "somebody else is always
responsible for a death. They don't want to take responsibility,"
she said.
All those factors made Sister Rose realize that AIDS posed a
serious threat to the people of Papua New Guinea.
Located in the Pacific Ocean north of Australia, Papua New Guinea
is on the eastern side of the world's second-largest island, which
it shares with Indonesia.
Its 5.5 million residents live in an area slightly larger than
California, much of it mountainous, and agriculture is the primary
industry.
Sister Rose said the climate in the Western Highlands is nearly
perfect, with morning lows in the 50s and afternoon highs in the
80s, and humidity is low.
"The weather is ideal and the scenery is beautiful," she said.
The first case of AIDS in the country was reported in 1987, she
said.
Three years later, two of Sister Rose's parishioners were
diagnosed HIV positive.
She has been working ever since to help comfort those who are
infected with the virus, and to help prevent the spread of the
disease.
Sister Rose said the rate of infection is reported to be 2 percent
of the population, and that 1 percent qualifies as an epidemic.
But she believes the rate is actually much higher and that many
cases go unreported.
Among the ministries she runs is the Shalom Care Center, a
two-bedroom house where four people with the virus stay for a week
at a time.
Sister Rose teaches them about nutrition, makes sure they eat
healthfully while at the home, and sees to it that when they leave
they know how to counter the effects of the virus as best as
possible.
"I'm trying to give them hope. They can live perfectly normal
lives, they don't have to die right away," she said. "They can
lead a good life even though they have the virus."
Some of the HIV victims she counsels are suicidal, she said.
"I just keep talking to them until I see a smile. Then I know
there's hope," she said.
The Shalom Care Center houses people every other week; on the
alternate weeks Sister Rose goes to the villages to visit with
people who have HIV and AIDS.
"I can't always expect them to come to see us. And when we go to
the villages, we can see what they are going to meet with when
they come back home. The whole family is affected by the disease,"
she said.
She brings them medicine and counsels them.
"I have to have a cover story for their confidentiality. I'm not
exactly incognito!" she said with a laugh, because she always
wears her gray and white habit.
"We test their blood, and if they are negative, we rejoice and try
to help them stay negative. If they're positive, we give them
medication and counsel with them," she said.
The country has only recently started getting anti-retroviral (ARV)
medicines that can slow the advance of AIDS. She said she has seen
people on the point of death surge back to life after getting a
dose of ARV.
But those drugs are expensive - about $200 a month, she said, in a
nation rife with poverty.
There are five American nuns and 12 Papua New Guinea nuns at the
mission in Banz, living in a convent without air conditioning or
even fans.
The sisters grow most of their own food.
"We try to be self-sufficient," she said. "I'm a city girl, but I
learned to drive a tractor - a small one."
Their water supply comes from rainwater collected from the
convent's rooftop.
"The telephones work sometimes. Power fails often, but we have a
generator," Sister Rose said.
When she first got there and something needed to be repaired, she
said the sisters would call a plumber or a carpenter and stand
beside them while they worked.
"You paid attention and learned so that the next time, you could
do it yourself," she said.
Sister Rose said she didn't experience culture shock when she
moved to Papua New Guinea, but gets it now when she comes back to
the United States.
"When I come back and see the changes, that's when I get culture
shock. People have changed. Values have changed."
But she said she loves driving on smooth roads for a change, and
admits that the first thing she does when she comes to America is
stop at a McDonald's restaurant.
In Papua New Guinea, Sister Rose has found herself in some
dangerous situations. A robber once put a gun to her head, she
said, and she was car-jacked another time.
She said she believes that people's prayers have helped her
through the tough times.
"Prayers are very, very important," she said.
More information about the Sisters of Notre Dame and their
overseas missions is available online at www.snd1.org or by
calling the Toledo provincial center, 419-474-5485.
Article from Toledo Blade newspaper in
the US
Article published Saturday, August 4, 2007
 
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