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Leonard Ncube [email protected]
THE Catholic Church’s Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood (FMDM) Sisters on Saturday welcomed a new member Sister Alice Michael, who took her first vows at St Kizito Parish in Victoria Falls.
Fr Oscar Bitu was the main celebrant at the First Professions Mass attended by priests and Sisters from Hwange Diocese, Bulawayo and Zambia.
Catholics from Victoria Falls and beyond, joined by others from Bulawayo and Zambia attended the Mass amid calls for the community and society to pray for and support those called into missionary work.

Sr Alice was immediately appointed to Nigeria where she will continue with her studies while doing vocations and missionary work.
She was overjoyed to take up sisterhood under the FMDM Sisters as she took her first vows.
The FMDM Sisters first arrived in Bulawayo in 1952 when their Mother General, Francis Spring sent a delegation of sisters to oversee construction of the Mater Dei Hospital which had started a year earlier.
This followed a request by the then Bishop Arnoz of Bulawayo for them to build a Catholic Hospital in Bulawayo.
They have contributed to education and health development in the country with building of Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo, one of the best health facilities in the country.

Mater Dei is Latin for Mother of God.
After hearing about the good reputation of the FMDM Sisters in the 1950s, the Anglo-American Mining Corporation requested the FMDM to administer Hwange Colliery Hospital and they subsequently opened a nurse training school there.
Although Hwange Colliery Company now runs the hospital, the FMDM Sisters still maintain their presence at the institution.
They also have presence at Fatima High School in Lupane.

In 1958 Government requested the FMDM Sisters to administer St Francis Home for mentally disabled in Bulawayo and they ran the facility until 1976 when they handed it back to Government due to political interference.

In the 1980s the FMDM Sisters worked at Sibantubanye Day Care Centre in Luveve and later established Simanyane Centre in Bulawayo, which are both still functional.
They opened a novitiate in Victoria Falls in 1983 to train indigenous Africans and the pioneer product was Sr Helen Doyle who is still with the congregation.
They set up another one at Fatima Mission in Lupane in 1989 and later opened Lubhancho House in Hwange to assist people affected by HIV and Aids which at the time ravaged the country in the late 1980s.
— @ncubeleon