In the small, mountainous country of Honduras, more than 40 percent of the nation's children are orphaned or abandoned. Of the 1.5 million children whose births are registered every year, 64 percent have no known father. These abandoned children make up Sister Maria Rosa's family - a family that she describes as "flourishing in all the world like a garden cultivated by the loving hand of God."
This woman is a short, round Franciscan nun with coffee-colored eyes that reflect an inner serenity, tempered by a hint of mischief. She is the founder of the Society of the Friends of the Children, the largest housing and educational program for orphans in Honduras.
Because of the personal magnetism she brings to her work, Sister Maria Rosa is regarded with wonder in her country. Under her loving care, thousands of children have moved out of the desperate cycle of poverty that has gripped the Honduran people for centuries and are living productive lives. Since 1967, she has cared for more than ten thousand homeless children. "But," she says, "I don't take too much credit. If you want to really live the Gospel, then you're supposed to do things like this, aren't you?"
Maria's Story
Maria Rosa Leggol was born in 1927 in El Paraiso, a small village on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Her father was a French-Canadian ship captain who came to Honduras and married a native woman. Maria was orphaned at five, when her father disappeared and her mother died.
For the next six years Maria was raised in the home of foster parents John and Petronilla Dempster, who surrounded her with warmth and affection. But Maria never forgot that she was an orphan and became more and more aware of the many other orphans she saw every day. In her own village, and wherever else she went, Maria saw little boys sleeping under bridges, using their shoe-shine kits for pillows. She saw little girls too, ragged and barefoot, growing up in the streets.
Maria entered a Franciscan orphanage in Comayagual when she was eleven, not because the Dempsters mistreated her or because she was unhappy, but because she felt she had to be around other orphans. Nevertheless, the transition from a small, loving home to a large, impersonal orphanage was traumatic - Maria found herself one of two hundred children cared by only two nuns.
Then and there, Maria resolved to find a better, more humane way to care for those children. Her principle: Every child should have the opportunities that she enjoyed while living in a home as part of a family.
After spending five years at the orphanage, Maria got her first job as a nurse's aide at a hospital in Tegucigalpa. The staff was so impressed with her spirit and ability that they encouraged her to train as a nurse, which she did, becoming a registered nurse in 1951.
Working the night shift, Maria became even more aware of the problems of the homeless children and adults she had always wanted to help. Food, clothing, blankets, and medicines began disappearing from the hospital, and everyone knew the "culprit" was Maria. She was beginning her real
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