After much prayer and deliberation we came to the belief that the Holy Spirit was calling us to Kenya where the needs of the dying are most often unmet. Too many of these are children who suffer from Burkitt’s lymphoma, a type of cancer which has an unusually high incidence in an area around Lake Victoria. St. Catherine's Home in Kisumu was opened to help such children and others afflicted with incurable cancer at the end of their lives.

The great poverty of Kenya as well as the lack of any systematic health care has for the most part cast the dying aside. Many patients cannot pay for treatment for their cancer or even pain medication and so simply go without. Frequently the patients are further compromised by malnutrition or other diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and a lack of understanding about the disease and its effects sometimes leads to superstition and neglect. Tumors and untreated wounds bring emotional as well as physical suffering.

In essence this is the same situation faced by Rose Hawthorne over a hundred years ago in lower New York. We, her spiritual daughters, are compelled to respond as she did. The need is clear. By offering medical care and loving comfort in a home where they can find peace, we can reassure the poor of Kenya that God loves them and has not abandoned them in their illness, that they possess the dignity of a child of God.