Mother Teresa service

By the end of 1948, mother Teresa became an Indian citizen.

About two hundred miles from Kolkata, is Shantinagar – a place for peace. Here the sisters and their helpers, most of who are cured lepers, ten to the many people suffering from leprosy.

Mother Teresa started the work with four sisters. To day missionary of charity have centers in many countries in the worked. More than 2000siters belonging to her order look after thousand of people in orphanages, dispensaries and schools for the poor.

Mother Teresa was awarded the noble peace prize in 1979. She was also awarded that Bharat Ratna, the highest national award of India. Indiragandhi once said of mother Teresa, `who else in this wide world reaches out to the friendless and the needy so naturally, so simply, so effectively?’’

Mother Teresa was born on 27 August 1910 in Yugoslavia. She was named Agnes Bejaxhiu. Even as a young girl she was deeply religious.

When she was eighteen years old, Agnes joined Loreto nuns and reached Darjeeling. The nuns Loreto are trained to be teachers, and this was the vocation that Sister Mary Teresa- as Agnes was now called-took up Darjeeling and later at Entally, Kolkata.

For nineteen years, Sister Teresa taught Geography at St. Mary’s High school in Loreto Convent. For some time she was appointed the principal of this school. On 18 August 1948, mother Teresa took off her nun’s dress and put on a sample blue-bordered white sari with a cross at the shoulder. Armed with little else but her deep faith in God and her love for the poor, she set out on the path to which she felt had called her. She started a group called the missionaries of Charity.

First she went to Patna and for three months trained very hard to become a good nurse. She returned to Calcutta and started her first school in the Moti Jheel slum.