
The Assumption Sisters of Eldoret are a young diocesan congregation from western Kenya with a presence in only three places: Kenya, South Sudan… and Broome.
The sisters accepted a call from halfway around the world to serve in the remote Western Australian town, and since 2018 have found unlikely parallels with their ministry back home in Kenya.
The Catholic Weekly spoke to Sr Dorcas Mbugua ASE by phone on a humid spring afternoon in Broome, after she had finished her day’s work at the town’s Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School.
The Assumption Sisters are not a missionary order and so 46-year-old Sr Dorcas was shocked to hear just a few years after making her final vows that she had been nominated to lead a new mission in the Aussie seaside town.
Wearing their dark blue habits, white veils and broad smiles, Sr Dorcas and Sr Claire Kimutai, both former teachers but not qualified to work as such in Australia, are assistants in St Mary’s Catholic College.
There they bring their infectious joy and energy to its early intervention programs for primary and high school students.
Fellow Sisters Victoria Kithungu, Margaret Mashirima, Stella Nderitu and Naum Barngetuny work in the diocese’s St Vincent Pallotti Op Shop.

“Most people here are Aboriginal and they have good memories of the St John of God Sisters who were the first religious sisters here,” she explained.
“When we came with our habits and our veils it reminded the older people of how the nuns used to teach them and do activities with them, and so they especially love to have us with them.
“We tell them about our country and what we do and in return they have opened up to us. We feel very appreciated and feel we belong here and are needed by the people here.”
Sr Dorca’s order was founded by Bishop Brendan Houlihan in 1962, when the Irish-born bishop was head of the Eldoret diocese, to serve in areas such as education, social work, counselling, and health care in the high-altitude city.
The only places it exists are in Kenya, South Sudan and Broome, but it is growing rapidly.
More than a dozen young women enter postulancy at the Eldoret mother house each year, and Sr Dorcas dreams of more sisters coming to study for qualifications here and serving communities who need them in Australia.
“Now that our first house here is established and is going very well we are ready to spread out to other missions from here,” she said.
“We get the benefit of broadening our congregation’s life and also people learn from us and our culture.”

Sr Dorcas sees some strong similarities between the cultures in Eldoret and Broome and says the indigenous smoking ceremonies remind the sisters of when they were growing up in Kenya.
“We used to sit around the fire as we waited for the food to be prepared and our ‘grannies’ would tell us old stories about their lives, the sorts of stories that teach you things about life,” she explained.
“Here they also have that respect for the elders.”
She sees Broome’s biggest challenge as the wellbeing of its young people and is concerned that both youth suicide and school truancy and early drop-out rates are high.
“The school does a good job to try to keep them but many children still don’t come,” she said.
Sr Stella agrees that their main mission is to “participate in Christ’s redeeming mission” through the power of their simple presence within Broome.
“We also value hospitality very much, we are very open to welcoming visitors in our community and our houses, and we go where the people are, wherever they need us and wherever they invite us,” she says.

“The weather is the big difference between here and Kenya. Where I am from it is quite cool, and it is very hot here for me but I have adjusted to it.
“And we don’t have beaches in Kenya, here people love to go to the beach, they love to invite us out to dinner—there is a lot of fun here.”
Broome recently hosted a meeting of sisters spanning three continents, when the Kenyan Assumption Sisters met two Sydney-based members of the Nashville Dominicans, whose mother-house is in the US.
Sr Susanna Edmunds OP and Sr Anastasia Reeves OP were hosted by the Assumption Sisters at their home, while visiting the Broome campus of the University of Notre Dame Australia for a graduation ceremony.
Sr Susanna said they were “delighted” to enjoy the hospitality of their counterparts from Africa in such an unexpected place.
“Although living and serving on opposite sides of the continent, we quickly bonded over our shared lives of religious consecration and mission in this great southland of the Holy Spirit,” she said.