Magadan is very fortunately to have a community of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. They have answered a call to come and serve the poor here in Magadan. Already their influence is touching many of our people. They are known by all the homeless who gather each friday at the city soup kitchen. They assisted one of our dear grandmothers as she lay home dying for more than three months, often visiting her twice a day, to feed and keep her clean. Now they are working with the city cancer ward to care for the most needest of those who are dying of cancer, visiting them in their home, and caring for their needs. So we are indeed blessed to have them as part of our parish family.

Sister Marta (Zofia) Bialowas was born in the city of Krakowiec, then a part of Poland but now a part of the Ukraine. She has been a Daughter of Charity for 47 years. During much of that time she has served as a cook. For nine years she was head cook for 125 hungry young men in Krakow Seminary.

For the past 15 years she has served in the Ukraine. Her first Ukrainian mission was in the town of Yemilchino, located 85 miles from Chernobyl, the site of the infamous nuclear reactor explosion in 1986. But health problems stemming from their location near Chernobyl require Sister Marta and her Sisters to leave after two and a half years. Then she missioned to Storozjinets, in the Ukrainian region of Chernivetsk. She participated in projects which provided food for the poor in 15 nearby parishes; cleaned altar linens in each of these parishes; and in her “spare time” served as cook for the Sisters on her mission.

Sister Marta was delighted to be chosen to come to Magadan where she will serve as our cook and spiritual anchor, praying for us while we leave home to serve. Sister Marta also has a dream of seeing a “real” polar bear. Recently in the Magadan museum, her wish came true!

Sister Jean Marie Williams, born in Norfolk, Virginia, has been a Daughter of Charity for 22 years. For most of that time she served in Evansville, Indiana where she worked in a day care center, a nursing home, as a pastoral associate in an urban parish and helped to raise funds to support the work of the Daughters of Charity.

When she found out about the possibility of ministering as a Daughter of Charity in Russia, she jumped at the

chance. She was missioned to Anchorage, Alaska for three years while she waited for the Magadan Daughter of Charity mission to become a reality.

In the fall of 2005 she came to Magadan with Sister Malgorzata Slomka and Sister Barbara Repetowska. After a two month hiatus in the U.S. to renew her visa and take care of other matters, she returned to Magadan in July 2006 with Sisters Malgorzata, Beata and Marta. She works with Sister Beata, helping in the care of the home bound sick.

Sr. Malgorzata Slomka was born in Poland in 1967 in the city of New Sonch. She finished teacher's college in 1989 and entered the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. For the first several years as a sister, she was assigned as catechist for children and youth in Krakow, Limanov and Kzheshovits, while at the same time studying theology at the Papal Academy in Krakow. In 1995 she made first vows. She was then sent to the Ukraine, to the city of Starozhenets. She worked there 6 years, teaching catechetics, assisting families with many children, visiting the sick and poor in the district. She came to Magadan in 2005, and a new house of the Daughters was established here in 2006. She assists the Parish of the Nativity in serving the elderly and sick.

We are all very happy to be here together in Magadan. Our apartments here on Proletarskaya street are filled with prayer, conversation in Polish, Ukrainian, English and mostly in Russian, laughter, and the good smells of vareniki, cabbage, borscht from the kitchen. With these gifts we are ready and eager to go out to serve Jesus Christ in those in need here in Magadan.

We ask you to keep us and our Daughters of Charity mission in your prayers! We will keep you, faithful supporters of the Parish of the Nativity in Magadan in our prayers. God bless you!

Sisters Malgorzata, Jean Marie and Marta