Sister Kathryn Volker, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Volker, Sr. of St. Anthony’s parish, is off for her beloved “second home” – India – once again.

Part of the national administrative staff of the Medical Mission Sister’s headquarters in Philadelphia, Sister Kathryn has been specially invited to India as part of a two-sister team to teach group skills and leadership techniques to 182 South Indian Medical Mission Sisters. The invitation is an added dimension of the international community’s spirit of sharing skills and talents cross-culturally.

A veteran missionary with 14 years of nursing and administrative service in India, this will mark Sister Kathryn’s first endeavor in group-process training overseas. Both she and her working cohort, Sister Kris Malins of Corpus Christi, Texas, have been engaged in leadership training and goal development for the past 18 months with 120 American Medical Missions Sisters and numerous religious and lay groups.

Through April the two will travel to the five Medical Mission Sister hospitals in Kerala State, South India, helping the sisters there to develop effective leadership and group skills to fit their life and work situations. The month of May will be one of visiting other Medical Mission Sister hospitals in Calcutta, Patna, Ranchi, New Delhi, Bombay and Pune.

Leadership training is one of the many new dimensions of healing that Medical Mission Sisters have become engaged in over the past five years. The international religious community of over 700 women sees its healing role in the ‘70s as not merely curing human suffering but of helping to develop the fullest human potential.

Sister Kathryn earned her R.N. diploma from St. Joseph Infirmary in Atlanta. She is also a registered midwife.