Suore Missionarie di San Pietro Claver

I am Sister Maureen Okafor, Nigerian. I was born in  Onitsha in a Catholic family for two generations. I am the third of ten children. 

My religious vocation was born while I was in high school. At that time I felt the desire to consecrate myself to the Lord growing in me. Especially during a seminar on religious vocation, held by a Sister, I strongly felt that this could also be my path. 

After school, I went to my parish priest to confide in him my interest in religious life and ask for his advice. After asking me various questions, he advised me to get my university degree first so that I could be more useful in the convent.

I followed his advice and enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering. At the University I met a religious of the Congregation of University Sisters and I spoke to her about my interest in the consecrated life. She told me that, being still a student, I could in the meantime join the group of young people, the so-called altar servers, this would be a first step towards my choice to serve God. 

I also enrolled in the Legion of Mary. So I had the opportunity to visit families who wanted to know God better through meditation on the Word, or those who do not yet know Him. I loved this missionary work very much.

But after graduation everything changed. Since I found the job almost immediately - which is very difficult in my country - I thought that probably God does not call me to religious life. In addition, my parents were so happy that I found the job that they allowed me to leave for Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, although we had no relatives or acquaintances there. Living and working in the big city is the greatest dream, especially for young people. 

And so my desire to become a nun almost vanished and I was slowly replacing it with the project of starting a family. 

But the Lord hasn't stopped knocking on my heart. Although everything was going well, I did not feel satisfied, neither with the employment (first as a construction engineer and then as a teacher), nor with the marriage proposal. I didn't understand myself anymore.

Fortunately, I learned of a lay movement of the Precious Blood of Jesus and I began to attend their prayer meetings. 

During that time my father passed away and having no older brother, I offered to help my mother run my father's building materials business. So I went back to my hometown. Here, attending the same prayer group as in Abuja, I rediscovered that God was truly calling me to the religious life. 

I met the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver through a friend of mine. Currently she too is a Sister in our Congregation.

I have always wanted to be a missionary in order to speak to people about God, and therefore the charism of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver, that is, missionary animation, I very much liked and the motto of our Foundress, Blessed Maria Teresa Ledòchowska: “The most divine of divine things is to cooperate in the salvation of souls”, it touched me in the depths of my heart.

And so in 2013 I entered the community of the Claverian Sisters in Awgu, Nigeria. After three years of initial formation, I made my First Religious Vows and I came to Rome to continue religious formation in our international juniorate.

In conclusion, I would like first of all to thank the Lord for his infinite patience with me: he waited so many years until I said "yes" to his call. I can make my own the words of Saint Augustine: You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until it rests in you, Lord. "

And I am happy to be part of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver. The main purpose of our Congregation is precisely to help the laity to become aware that every Christian by virtue of baptism is a missionary and to support them in the concrete realization of this mission.

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Sr. Maureen