Mother Teresa visited Jenkins, Kentucky 32 years ago

Jenkins, Kentucky is a small town with a big story to tell and Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity are forever a part of that story and that community.

On June 24, 1982 she came to the small town of Jenkins, Kentucky to establish the first mission in the United States -Missionaries of Charity in Letcher County. The mission is still active today. Mother Teresa was a physically small

woman - only 4’10” - with a very large life and legacy. September 5, 2014 marked the 17th anniversary of her death.

For our Janie Hunt this visit in 1982 has left a lasting memory for her. The little white house on Coal Road next toJanie’s home place (pictured above) would become the Nobel laureate and founder of the Missionaries of Charityhome for a week. Janie and her mother both had the honor to meet Mother Teresa, received St. Christopher Medalsfrom her, and Janie had the pleasure to hold Mother Teresa’s hand. Janie said her visit to Jenkins was anexemplification of love and her message at the Mass was “Do small things with great love.” Janie commented thatmany of the people who came to see this small woman were not catholic, but when Mother Teresa invited everyoneto come and join in the prayers with her and her sisters, many came forward.

Fr. Edward Randall was the pastor of the only Catholic Church in this mostly protestant county. The parishioners ofSt. George were amazed by her presence in the community. What impressed Janie and others most was thesimplicity of her faith. “There was no getting tangled up in theological arguments,” she just told people - just talk toJesus. Janie remarked, “Mother Teresa just had that God-given ability to touch people.”

Fr. Randall had worried because of the declining population of people in the Jenkins area. He was afraid that theparish would eventually close but when he retired in 2008, he had served as pastor at St. George with less than 35families for 28 years. Janie said she was so pleased when he baptized her granddaughter, Hannah, in 2006. It was one of the great joys of my life when I got to meet her personally, Janie said. I know that everyone who mether was just in awe. I think you were moved by her holiness and her deep sincerity. Mother Teresa’s legacy is stillalive and will live on in the mountains of that Eastern Kentucky coal town.

Former Louisville’s Courier-Journal photographer Jay Mather took this iconicphoto of Mother Teresa during her visit to Jenkins in June 1982 at the Masscelebrated at the St. George Catholic Church. He traveled with her for days. Jay was humbled by Mother Teresa and later, Pope John Paul II. His works are shown online at Jay Mather’s Photography.

(The following is excerpts of the article written by Marcie Crim that appeared in the Jenkin’s Mountain Eagle Newspaper in June 1982)

On any given day in the City of Jenkins, there are Catholic nuns moving quietly about town in simple Indian sarismade of soft white linen with blue borders. In a town of few Catholics, and maybe even fewer people familiar with asari, this can be a surprising sight. Glimpses of the Sisters are rare, but they can occasionally be seen at the one gasstation in town, the local IGA, or crossing Main Street while walking home after attending mass at St. George CatholicChurch.

If you are present for one of the many services held at St. George throughout the week, you can find the nuns smilingat new visitors and kindly offering up page numbers for hymns — and sweetly encouraging the people in the back toplease move closer to the front. They have been in Jenkins for three decades, modestly doing good work in the spiritof “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,” or Mother Teresa as she is known to the world.

Mother Teresa was born in Albania in 1910 and died in 1997 at the age of 87. She claimed that in 1948 Jesus calledher to Calcutta, India to help the dying and poor.

Through her work in Calcutta she became an international figure of love and faith after being awarded the NobelPeace Prize in 1979. She also became somewhat of a celebrity, creating friendships with the likes of Princess Di andspeaking at the United Nations. She was often invited to the White House and also had the ear of the Pope. In 1999, apoll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup’s List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

A high rate of poverty and an already established Catholic church brought Mother Teresa to Jenkins just a little morethan 30 years ago, on June 24, 1982. She came to establish a Missionaries of Charity mission in Letcher County — theorder’s first in rural America. “Missionaries’ of Charity” was established in 1950 and consists of over 4,500 Sistersand is active in 133 countries. Mother Teresa said she created the organization to care for, “the hungry, the naked,the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared forthroughout society, people that have become a burden to society and are shunned by everyone.

“She was very small and very humble,” recalls Jay Mather, a photographer who documented Mother Teresa’s 1982visit to Jenkins for Louisville’s Courier-Journal. “Everywhere she went, she was followed by the other sisters — shewas never alone.” Mather said about two to three weeks after his trip to Jenkins he received an autographed copy ofthe article and photo that appeared in the Courier-Journal. It was signed, “God bless you, Mother Teresa”.

Accounts of the mass that day vary. Some say the service took place inside the church and every pew was filled.Another account has the mass taking place in the parking lot with about 150 people seated in folding chairs.Regardless, many Jenkins residents turned out, as did other folks from the region and from as far away as Alabamaand Ohio. In addition to attending mass and setting up the mission in an old beauty parlor in downtown Jenkins,Mother Teresa spotted an empty house across the road. From the mission came an expressed desire to open ashelter for battered women and their children. As late as 1997 the shelter was reportedly active, but when a reporterasked the current pastor of St. George Catholic Church if the shelter was still in operation he said no.

What is still very active is the mission. A member of the convent must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty,obedience, and the fourth vow, to give “Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor.” The Sisters inJenkins unassumingly go about helping folks in the area. They deliver food baskets to the hungry, sit and pray withthe sick, change bandages of the wounded, and are regular visitors to the region’s prisons and hospitals. Livingwithout television, a computer, or access to newspapers, magazines or secular books, their sole focus is on the needsof the community and their personal relationships with God.

Mother Teresa visited Jenkins again either once or twice, depending on whom you ask or what information you canfind regarding her relationship with Jenkins. She did become close friends with Father Edward Randall, the pastor of

St. George Catholic Church from 1980 until his retirement in 2008. She asked him to lead a three-week retreat for herSisters in Calcutta, India and he accompanied her on various trips when she would visit the United States. Fr. Randallserved for 28 years as pastor in Jenkins and died in 2009 at the age of 87.