Florida Catholic | ‘They Better Call Me Sister Baby’

‘They better call me Sister Baby’

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 06.06.08

Sister Pudentiana Tibabyekomya, 57, receives a master’s degree in pastoral leadership counseling from Saint Leo President Dr. Arthur F. Kirk Jr. at the university’s graduation ceremony May 3. Sister Tibabyekomya now will return to Africa where she will start a spiritual center in Tanzania that will care for people with AIDS, counsel those traumatized by war, provide for basic and job-skills education of orphans and children from poor families.
Courtesy Photo

ST. PETERSBURG | If not for limited seating and two oceans, the number of people celebrating Sister Prudentiana Tibabyekomya’s May 3 graduation from Saint Leo University would have been far greater.

The babies, youths and teens in Africa whose lives God changed through the sister’s work would struggle to find a place in the Marion Bowman Activities Center building, which seats about 2,000. Add the sisters who worked alongside her, the mother superior who sent her to the United States, the Benedictine Sisters who provided a home and the St. Lawrence Parish community, and there simply would not have been room, even for a few hours, even if the youngest children were held in older children’s arms.

It was a beautiful graduation, the sister of the Sisters of St. Therese of the Little Flower said. She had accomplished everything she had hoped to do, not the least of which was becoming fluent in English: She made dear, supportive friends. She earned a bachelor’s in theology and a master’s in pastoral leadership and counseling. She found help for her children.

But her degree carried a touch of sadness, for her next ministry will prevent her from returning to the orphanage she founded in Burundi, to the children who fed her desire to secure an education.

BABIES SPUR VOCATION

At least she will get more babies. It was the babies, after all, who led her to her vocation. Sister Tibabyekomya grew up in Burundi. The Sisters of St. Therese of the Little Flower worked in her village and, almost 50 years ago, the nun was a little girl from a family of 16 who was fascinated by the sisters and their work.

“I would see the sisters surrounded by children,” she said. “I would leave home to go be with the sisters and help them prepare their house.”

One day, when she was about 10, she carried her baby brother on her back when she visited the sisters. A nun told her she couldn’t be a nun if she had a baby. Enough said.

“I went home, put the baby on the floor and went back,” she said. “My father came and took me home.”

Her mother was baffled as to why a child who so clearly loved babies would want to give up on marriage. Her pleas changed nothing. Two years later, Sister Tibabyekomya returned to the sisters to enter a boarding school. At age 17, she took vows.

She joined the sisters’ work to ease the suffering of the people of Burundi. They staffed a hospital and assisted the bishop with refugees trying to escape violence in their country.

SISTER FOUNDS ORPHANAGE

The state of children, especially those orphaned, particularly troubled the young Sister Tibabyekomya. Boys were commissioned as soldiers. Girls were used for sex and tossed away. All were suffering from severe malnutrition. The nun went to her bishop and told him she wanted to open an orphanage.

“The bishop told me, you are not being realistic. How can you do this when you have (no resources),” she said. “He said, ‘Can you guarantee the future of this? I said, ‘I cannot guarantee the future. You cannot guarantee your future.”

She and five other sisters opened the orphanage to about four dozen children. The children planted and tended a garden for food. They went to school. Word got out and one day, some people who said they were journalists from an international organization stopped by to talk to her about her work. Fearful they were from a warring faction making plans to raid the orphanage and steal the children, she told them she had no idea what they were talking about.

“We were careful, because in the war you never know,” she said. “They said we had orphans. We said, ‘no.’ I said, ‘They are making their own gardens. They are cooking their food. They are an African family.”

The people left, but two days later, while she was helping refugees in the parish, one of her sisters came running.

“Mother,” she said. “Come here. See.”

The people had come back with a truck. Sister Tibabyekomya thought they were coming to take away the children, but the visitors came to give.

“They brought rice … sacks of flour, cooking oil, sugar, milk,” she said. “We were all crying.”

There was so much food the sisters fed the children, the neighbors and the widows in nearby villages. She knows nothing about the organization that came to her aid.

“They were European and Americans,” she said. “We don’t even know their names.”

NUN COMES TO U.S.

Sister Tibabyekomya’s orphanage housed 49 children. Three hundred twenty-nine more were placed in the homes of poor families who supported the sisters’ work. The sisters tried to focus on placing war-traumatized children in homes rather than the orphanage because they needed the comfort and stability of a family. Because two of her siblings were adopted, Sister Tibabyekomya knew families were the best salve for hurting children.

She was, however, unable to keep her work quiet. Eventually, those who wanted to exploit the children wanted her gone. In 2003, her community superior and some priests here arranged for her to study theology in Florida. The Benedictine Sisters of Florida gave her shelter and food in the Holy Name Monastery in St. Leo.

“They have been a blessing to me. I love them so much,” Sister Tibabyekomya said. “When I came, they didn’t know what kind of person I was. I was so traumatized. But … they respect everybody. They helped me by their prayers and community life.”

Eager to return home, Sister Tibabyekomya secured a bachelor’s in two-and-a-half years. Her superior told her to get more schooling that would support the sisters’ ministry, so she went back for her master’s.

The superior also suggested she see if people in the United States would be able to help the people in Burundi. On Mission Sunday 2005, the diocese permitted Sister Tibabyekomya to tell her story during Mass at St. Lawrence Parish, Tampa, to see if people wanted to donate. Marie Martin and her husband were in the pews that Sunday, listening to the stories of the sisters and their work in Burundi.

“My husband and I were so moved … by her stories and wanted to help,” Martin said.

PARISH ADOPTS CAUSE

The Martins spearheaded a parish and school effort to sponsor all 49 children, at the cost of $300 each, in the orphanage. The children of St. Lawrence learned about and prayed daily for the people of Burundi. When the orphanage needed a water tank and new roof, the Jesuit High School Key Club stepped in and helped raise the funds.

“It has been very fulfilling,” Martin said. “It has made our children aware of these children and their needs. … I felt very spiritually moved by all of it.”

With her degrees in hand, the 57-year-old Sister Tibabyekomya now will return to Africa. Her community has asked her to start a spiritual center in Tanzania that will care for people with AIDS, counsel those traumatized by war, provide for basic and job-skills education of orphans and children from poor families, and provide a retreat site where people can find a little peace in their harsh lives and time to focus on God. Carrying a $2.5 million price tag, the center project is ambitious. The Martins and other friends in Tampa are trying to organize local support.

“When I started this, I thought, ‘This would take a miracle,” Sister Tibabyekomya said. “But God is not poor.”

“The American people have faith. They are giving to the Lord,” she said. “I appreciate that people believe in me and make this good work fruitful.”

TIME TO MOVE ON

The religious sister will take on her new assignment at the end of summer. She will miss the children she sheltered in Burundi, but there will be new babies, new needs. The teen from the large family who wanted more than anything to have children, now has more than her mother could have imagined.

“When I became a nun, everywhere I went Jesus showed me I have children,” she said. “Those children, they need me. … I am called to be with the people and experience what they are going through.”

Recently, Sister Tibabyekomya spelled her lengthy last name for a reporter doing an interview. When reporter noted that the word “baby” was inside the Americanized version of her name, the nun laughed.

“Oh! It makes me laugh – this name now,” she said. “They better call me ‘baby.’ That would be so nice. They better call me Sister Baby now.”

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