Author name: Jessica Franks

Aria arrived home from a long day of working in the fields to find her 12-year-oldson, Abdou, unresponsive with a high fever. She spent the next 3 hours transporting Abdou to St Martin de Porres Hospital in Cameroon. Cerebral malaria was quickly diagnosed and IV medications begun. Aria remained at Abdou’s bedside as he remained in a coma the next 48

When I was growing up, The Solemnity of the Ascension was celebrated on, the Thursday that was 40 days after Easter. Today in my Archdiocese and in many places, it is now celebrated on the following Sunday. When the number 40 is used in the Bible is reflects a time of preparation. During the 40

The International Day of Families is observed on the 15th of May every year. This year’s theme is “Families, education and well-being” In a hospital in the United States the meals are provided for patients, (no matter what the reputation of hospital food may be) and the hospital provides the ever fashionable but always clean

“We are happy with this doctor because he takes good care of our father” Once again, Obdu wasn’t feeling well, and he and his sons intentionally made the trip to see Mission Doctor Jim Hake, because he had taken such good care of Obdu before. Even though so many years had passed, the quality of

People who have never traveled to locations where our doctors serve may believe that there are few things that we have in common with people half a world away.  Others who have some experience traveling may note that in some ways we are different and in others the same. One universal reality is the love

There are three sugar cubes I specifically remember eating as a child. On each occasion, our entire family would get into the car in the evening and travel 14 miles to the school gymnasium in a nearby town where we waited in line for well over an hour. Any complaints about the length of the

Divine Mercy Sunday is a relatively new addition to the Church’s liturgical year. In 2000 Saint John Paul II named the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday (flowing from a devotion to Christ’s Divine Mercy by a Polish nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska). So what do we celebrate? First, we celebrate that for Christians God

Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus is something we may hold in our hearts every day. We know that His resurrection makes possible our own eternal life. Therefore, Easter is celebrated well beyond Easter Sunday – for a season of 50 days, from Easter to Pentecost, this year from Sunday, April 16 – to Pentecost Sunday,

For those of us who attend Holy Saturday’s Easter Vigil service it may seem long and tedious. But this liturgy, through Old Testament and New Testament readings, leads us through salvation history from Creation to our new creation at Easter and then with the baptism of the catechumens we witness new creations. Easter is normally

I recently returned from Cameroon, West Africa, visiting out Mission Doctors and our partners in mission.  I traveled all over the Northeastern area of the country and visited Padre Pio Maternity Hospital in Douala, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Shisong and St. Martin de Porres Hospital in Njinikom.  After days of travel, miles and miles of roads