By Rita McInerney

Despite the presence of armed soldiers in the vicinity, the situation at Our Lady of Fatima Rehab Center in Cape Palmas, Liberia, is much better. Sister Sponsa Beltran has returned to her children.

When the Bernardine sister was forced to leave in 1991 because of continuing civil unrest in the small African nation, the 28 children with polio or birth defects that she cared for were placed with local families.

All of the children came to the center to greet Sister Sponsa and her sister and brother-in-law, Angie and Henry Cebulski, of Snellville, when they arrived earlier this month. They carried 18 suitcases and duffel bags filled with clothes, crutches, and other items for the children on the long trip from Atlanta to Cape Palmas.

“Immigration on both sides of the border (Ivory Coast and Liberia) was great,” Mrs. Cebulski said, except for the crutches that felt like guns through the fabric of the bags. When the Americans explained what the suspicious baggage was, customs officials on the Liberian side yielded and sent a soldier with them on the last leg of their journey. He opened and inspected the 18 bags when the party arrived at Cape Palmas.

Mrs. Cebulski said the soldiers of rebel leader Charles Taylor were “everywhere” when they arrived. Some were “quite harsh,” but most were kind. In fact, some had been taken care of by Sister Sponsa as youngsters.

Before the Americans left the Ivory Coast for Liberia, Sister Sponsa purchased two truckloads of food for her mission. She shared a portion of the rice, a mainstay of the Liberian diet, with soldiers at the border. When difficulty arose about getting the second truckload to the rehab center, it was soldiers who drove it there.

The local economy received a boost when the Bernardine sister came back. One week later, she opened a rice kitchen to feed children and older people and had 20 people working at the center. They hadn’t worked in seven months, Mrs. Cebulski said.

The children she had cared for so lovingly until her forced departure last year looked “great,” Mrs. Cebulski reported. Sister Sponsa admitted she “felt like I never left.”

Her center is located in an area shared with the bishop’s office and Catholic center which includes a school and convent. When she returned, Bishop Dalieh had the Eucharist brought back to the convent chapel.

Sister Sponsa’s center is supported by numerous Catholics in Atlanta as well as people throughout the United States and Europe. In an Easter message to many of these benefactors she expressed gratitude and happiness at returning to Liberia.

“How can I thank each of you for all the prayers and gifts of love that will enable us to bring rice and other food into Liberia…My heart is overflowing with excitement…The children and I will make special efforts to increase our prayers of thanksgiving to God for you beautiful people who hear the cry of the poor and respond so magnanimously,” she wrote.

Sister Sponsa first went to Liberia in the 1970s but an eye ailment forced her return to the U.S. She returned to Liberia in 1986.