JERUSALEM – Sister Maria David Magbanua, FSE, was highlighted in a recent National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report for her work with the children of migrants and asylum seekers in Jerusalem. Sister Maria David has been the director of St. Rachel Center for the past seven years, carrying out this ministry under the auspices of the Latin Patriarchate’s Vicariate for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. St. Rachel Center, a child care center, ministers to 28 young children during the day, and offers an after-school program for about 30 school age children. The article describes the Church’s response to the overwhelming need for this ministry as migrant families and asylum seekers come to the Holy Land.
Sister Maria David, herself an immigrant from Ilo Ilo, Philippines, arrived in Jerusalem as a young lay woman seeking work. It was there that she met the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist and later became a member of the Congregation, professing perpetual vows in 2010. For more about Sister Maria David, see Featured Sister.
Read the National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report.