Korean congregations move into Nepal

(October 4, 2010) The Catholic directory of Nepal will soon include two congregations of nuns from South Korea, says the head of the church in the Himalayan nation. Jesuit Bishop Anthony Sharma, Apostolic Vicar of Nepal, made the announcement following a recent trip to Korea where he visited the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres (SPC) in Seoul and the Sisters of the Sacred Word in Daejon. Sister Gemma Lucie Kim, the former provincial of the St. Paul of Chartres congregation in Seoul said she first visited Nepal two years ago to see if it was possible to work there and now they have acquired their first permanent house there, the first in South Asia. The sisters hosted an inaugural Mass at the new house in central Kathmandu on Thursday. The nuns now have two communities in Nepal. The Kathmandu community with three sisters will focus on education. The Pokhara community, 200 kilometers west of Kathmandu, which also has three sisters, will provide health services via a mobile clinic. The sisters, who already speak Nepali, said it was much easier for Koreans to learn the local language than English. Meanwhile, two Korean Sisters of the Sacred Word, who have provided health services in Nepal for the last four years, have now received official permission for their work from Bishop Sharma. The two Sacred Word nuns live in rented quarters in Kathmandu. They travel regularly to Nalang village in Dhading district near Kathmandu where they helped establish St. Mary’s health centre this year. they also plan to open a hostel in Kathmandu for half a dozen of the “brightest” boys from Nalang whose parents otherwise could not afford to provide them with a higher education.