Two Kiribati women join Good Samaritans

Friday, June 19th, 2015

Two Kiribati women, Tuata Terawete and Juniko Toaua, were professed as Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict during a ceremony earlier this month.

The Rite of First Profession took place during Eucharist at St Thomas Aquinas Church in Springwood, NSW, Australia.

Both women were born and raised in the Republic of Kiribati.

In the coming weeks, Juniko and Tuata will return to Kiribati where they will continue with a study program and engage in ministry.

They are part of a growing group of Kiribati women drawn to the Good Samaritan way of life.

Currently this group consists of two perpetually professed sisters, four temporary professed sisters and three women in the pre-novitiate phase.

The Good Samaritan sisters have been working in Kiribati since since 1991.

They are involved in education, pastoral and community development roles.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict, known affectionately as the Good Sams, is Australia’s first ‘home-grown’ congregation of Catholic religious women.

Archbishop John Bede Polding, an English Benedictine monk and Australia’s first bishop, founded them in Sydney in 1857.

Today, there are around 235 sisters living and working throughout Australia, in Japan, Kiribati, and the Philippines.

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