“I was born in Utica, NY, the oldest of five children,” said Sister Christel Burgmaier, formerly Sister Marie Barbara. “After completing high school, I was accepted at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester for their three-year nursing course, where I graduated in 1962. It was at the hospital that I first got to know the Sisters of Saint Joseph…as patients.

“I entered the Congregation in 1965 and graduated from the University of Rochester in 1966. In 1968, two months after my first vows, I was chosen to go to Brazil for three years, and I have been there ever since.

“My first and only mission has been the town of Paranaiguara, Goiás, the town in which we began our mission in Brazil. Since I was not a teacher by profession, I began visiting the people, mothers with small children, the sick and the poor. We started receiving free samples of medication from our hospital in Elmira, NY, and I was able to help people that were sick and had no money to buy medicine.

“I then signed a contract with the State of Goiás and started working in a health clinic which had been closed because there was no one to work there. About 16 years later, the mayor asked me to become responsible for nursing services in the hospital. Since the nurses had no formal training, I was able to get them into a part-time nursing program to work and study nursing! I also started doing prenatal care, organized classes for the expectant mothers, helped with deliveries and surgery.

“I retired from the hospital in 2013. I continue to do home visits and help in the parish. I also continue to organize a Christmas food distribution for the poor each year, which I have been doing since I came to Brazil.

“These have been wonderful years!”