A House Full of Blessings

A statue of a prayerful Mother Mary greets guests just inside the gate of St. Mary’s Home for Mothers near Excelsior Springs, Mo. The sanctuary for homeless mothers and pregnant women was once a monastery for Benedictine nuns.

Sr. Anita pauses for a moment during her daily routine at St. Mary’s Home for Mothers near Excelsior Springs, Mo. Sr. Anita lived in the home when it was a Benedictine monastery but left for a few years after the monastery was disbanded. She returned when the house was converted for use as a sanctuary for homeless mothers and pregnant women.

Baby Joshua Williams, two months old, rests in a bassinet while Sr. Anita, Michalia Williams, Nini Mitchell and Jesse Hubbard have dinner at St. Mary’s Home for Mothers. The women who live in the house describe themselves as a found family. Sr. Anita says she sees herself as “a mentor, companion, a spiritual mother” to the trio.

Sr. Anita touches Joshua Williams feet. Joshua was born with a club foot and St. Mary’s Home for Women helped his mom, Michalia Williams, get insurance to help pay for surgery to fix it.

Sr. Anita prays alone inside the St. Mary’s Home for Women chapel. Prayer bookends her days. It is one of the first things she does in the morning — after a cup of coffee — and one of the last things she does before bed.

Michalia Williams, far right, tells Nini Mitchell and Sr. Anita about her emotional day at court, at St. Mary’s Home for Mothers. Williams’ husband got to meet their son, Joshua, for the first time at the court. Joshua’s “face kept lighting up,” Williams said. It’s like he was trying to figure out how he knew his dad, she said.

Even though Sr. Anita is from Pohnpei, Micronesia she doesn’t have to travel too far to see family. She has almost weekly dinners with her twin sister Anna Helgenberger, right, as well as her other sisters and extended family. Anna used to be a nun at the same monastery as Sr. Anita but left religious life and started a family in Liberty, Mo. Sr. Anita says her family sometimes asks her why she keeps bookkeeping for churches when she could make more money in the corporate world. “I say: ‘that’s not my calling. I’m content with what little I have.’”

Sr. Anita carries a package of diapers up the stairs from the house’s storage. Shelves of diapers and other maternity supplies line the walls of the basement.

When baby Joshua Williams needed a bath, Sr. Anita asked Michalia Willams if she could help. Sr. Anita had an aunt who was a nun and said she always felt called to religious life and never thought about having her own children. “I really admired her and her community,” Sr. Anita said. That aunt would go on to be one of the founders of the monastery that would eventually become St. Mary’s Home for Mothers.

Sr. Anita leaves St. Mary’s Home for Mothers to go get ice cream in Liberty, Mo., with the other women who live in the home. The home is fenced in with an electronic gate which opens by code. The women who live there have to let staff know where they’re going if they leave but are usually free to go whenever they want.