By the time the foreign congregations were expelled from China — most of them by 1955 — religious orders had established local churches; nurtured education, especially for women; formed catechists; and ministered to the rural poor.
Congregations of Chinese women religious had been founded and Chinese women joined American congregations like the Adorers. Once Mao Tse-tung took control of the country, Chinese women had difficult decisions to make. Should they stay with the American community and leave with them for the United States? Should they remain as Sisters but stay in China with an uncertain fate under Communism, or should the women dissolve their membership in religious life?
This is a book about the history of religious orders in China, and specifically, the Adorers.
Written by Sister Regina Siegfried, ASC
© 2005 Regina Siegfried, ASC. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt
On August 10, five Adorers were missioned to faraway, hardly known China. Isolated, rural, and oriented to teaching and health care, the Ruma center, located in Midwestern farmland that is dotted with small towns, seemed, and was, an unlikely place to launch a mission to China. Yet the Sisters’ willingness to cross both external and internal boundaries exhibited a profound trust in a loving Providence and an audacious ability to risk.