Like her fellow Columban Sisters, Sr. Anne Carbon is dedicated to the basics of Catholic missionary work: spreading the Good News of the Gospel and helping out whenever poor people suffer and need support.

Sr. Anne’s mission life caring for mentally ill people in the Andes of Mountains of southern Peru is quite the departure from her early years on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. But, as Sr. Anne like to say, “God certainly writes straight on crooked lines!”

 

Sr. Anne grew up in Cayagan de Oro with six sisters and two brothers. As a nursing student in college, she became interested in the field of mental health, working with—and deeply impressed by—a group of Catholic Sisters who cared for the mentally ill.

 

After she finished her studies, Sr. Anne decided to join these Sisters and was sent to Cebu, the Philippines, to begin her formation as a religious Sister.

 

She began to sense, however, that this way of life was not for her. She left the community and found a job. Her dream of being a Sister was nearly abandoned.

 

Then one day, a priest friend introduced her to another group of Catholic Sisters—the Columban Sisters.

Sr. Anne learned that the Columban Sisters share in the lives of the people around them in small, intercultural and poor communities. She gradually sensed anew the inner call that had first attracted her to religious life. Once again, she decided, she would again set out in faith and offer herself to God for the sake of mission.

 

She studied in Manila and, after three years, made her first commitment as a Columban Sister. She went to work among the Subanen people of the southern Philippines for two years before she was invited to go on mission to Peru.

 

Dream Of A New Mission

 

After Spanish-language studies, Sr. Anne finally was able to use her training in mental illness treatment working for a year in a psychiatric hospital in Lima. But another calling also occupied her thoughts—the possibility of opening a new mission for the Columban Sisters in the mountains of southern Peru.

 

Soon, she and another Sister set off for Ayacucho. She would find a great need for her skills as a mental health practitioner.

 

Peru suffered intensely in the 1980s and ’90s from the terror inflicted by Sendero Luminoso, the Communist “Shining Path” guerrilla movement.

 

The scars were everywhere. To avoid the terrorists, many fled to the shantytowns of Lima. But fleeing didn’t quell the suffering and trauma of seeing loved ones killed. They needed help.

 

Sr. Anne helped provide this care through a diocesan program that gives specialized attention and

rehabilitation to those in need. In addition, caring program staff provides outreach help to people living in small mountain villages; professional teams come from Lima the United States to help with the work.

 

When Sr. Anne searched for her direction in life, she could not have known that her desire to serve the mental health needs of those traumatized by life’s events would be fulfilled in the mountains of Peru. Her early dreams and plans did not follow a straight line. However, she was willing to try again and God gave back to her a hundredfold—far beyond what she could ever have hoped for or imagined.