DECATUR - Sister Anna Phiri is still relatively new to St. Mary's Hospital, but her warm smile and gentle manner have already touched the lives of patients and employees alike.

Originally from Zambia, in central Africa, Phiri, 55, has been working in the Pastoral Care department for nearly a year. The hospital has been hosting a series of luncheons with Phiri so she can share the story that took her from Zambia to Decatur with employees.

"I always think I'll remember to bring the map to show where Zambia is," Phiri said as a recent luncheon began.

Phiri, who lives with Sister JoAn Schullian and Sister Jocelyn Serwatka, shares her African culture with her fellow sisters by preparing traditional dishes and playing the drums. She travels home every other year and was there most recently in September.

Phiri was the oldest of 11 children. Her introduction to women in religious life came when she attended a series of boarding schools run by nuns.

"I just admired their way of life, the way they prayed," she said. "And they even made us into little sisters because we were expected to go to Mass every morning, and then after Mass would say our prayers," she said.

Phiri's high school was run by the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa, Canadian nuns also known as the "Grey Nuns."

Throughout her education, Phiri said she worked hard, intending to finish school and help with the education of her siblings. But there remained a yearning deep in her soul, a desire to connect with the sisters who mentored her.

She kept praying the same prayer throughout the final years of her education: "God, may you call many young women to become sisters, but don't call me."

At the end of each school year, there was a religious retreat. Phiri, afraid that she would finally realize her calling for religious life, managed to avoid going until her senior year. That year, she discovered her name on the signup sheet. Nobody would admit to having written it there, but Phiri decided to go anyway.

From the first day of the retreat, Phiri wept. The sisters asked her what was wrong, and she told them she cried because she didn't want to be a sister.

"And that is when I realized that all these years, I had been trying to avoid something, a calling which was very deep within me," she said.

Phiri joined a community of Teresian Sisters, where she spent 26 years. In 1995, she said she again felt God was calling her - this time to an international community. At first, she resisted that calling, as she had resisted her initial calling.

"I like to struggle with God," Phiri said with a chuckle. "I always say no, and then God says, 'OK, I'll wait for you."

In 1998 Phiri came to Chicago on sabbatical, where she shared an apartment with a Hospital Sister of the Third Order of St. Francis from Springfield, who invited her back to their motherhouse for Thanksgiving.

"I said no," Phiri said. "Going back to Zambia, if I say I was in Springfield, they won't even know what Springfield is."

She decided to go anyway, and upon arriving in Springfield, she spent some time praying at the Adoration Chapel.

"As soon as I knelt in that chapel, there was like a voice from within," Phiri said, recalling the clarity of the moment.

The voice said, "This is it." Phiri knew then she had found her new home. She resisted this calling for months. But in 2000, she transferred her vows to the new community.

"The one thing that attracted me to the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis was our charism, or the gift that you give to people or give to the church," Phiri said. "Being God's or being Christ's healing presence."

She initially worked to help young people to find their true calling in life by leading "busy person's retreats" on college campuses. The retreats, which Phiri now does for hospital employees, consist of 30 minutes of prayer and 30 minutes reflecting on the prayer experience.

"It's just amazing how God opens you in a way you didn't expect," Mary Handley, director of mission and spiritual care at St. Mary's, said of the retreats.

After coming to Springfield, Phiri felt herself called in a new direction. This time, it brought her to Decatur.

"The more I prayed, the more I saw myself being in one of our hospitals," she said. "Doing what, I didn't know at that time."

"We are really blessed to have Sister Anna here," Handley said.

She has worked there since January, focusing on being a healing presence for employees, patients and their families. Hospital employees must care for one another as well as for the patients, she said.

"We have to look at people beyond what we see on the outside," she said. "There is goodness in each human being, and that goodness is just waiting to be tapped in so as to come out."

At the end of a recent luncheon with Phiri, one employee talked about an experience during which she prayed with a man and his family that his daughter would make it to his bedside before he died.

"Sometimes we feel like we're nobody," the woman said. "But in God's eyes, we're somebody."

Phiri said she has been praying and thinking a lot about the homeless and plans to volunteer at Oasis Day Center starting in January.

"There are times we think that we are the ones who are transforming their lives," Phiri said. "But most of the time it's the other way around. By being with them, you find something good in yourself."

agetsinger@herald-review.com|421-6968