By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
February 10, 2005

A Franciscan sister from the Diocese of Sioux City will return to China to teach English.

Sister Nancy Lafferty, FSPA, is going back to China to teach English to students at Wuhan University in the Hubei Angels International School of Nursing. This will be her fifth time traveling to China. Sister Leclare Beres, FSPA, will accompany Sister Nancy to China.

Sister Nancy will leave for China at the end of February and begin her six-month contract teaching oral English to 30 nursing students in May. She will return to the United States in November.

"This is the first time in 55 years that our Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of LaCrosse, Wis., will be in Wuhan, China," said Sister Nancy. "The school of nursing is not too far from our original property."

She was recently in China with the U.S. Catholic China Bureau Church and Culture Tour 2005 from Oct. 27 through Nov. 15 touring different cities. In each city, the group had a different tour guide that knew special places in the particular city to take them to.

"They are a very well organized group and they bring together all the Chinese undergraduate and graduate students studying in this country in a national conference in this country or they take people to China," said Sister Nancy.

While there, the group was able to visit several religious sites and churches - Islamic, Jewish, Christian.

Sister Nancy's first trip to China was in 1992 when she received an offer from Providence University in Tai Chung, Taiwan, through her sister, Sister Andre Lafferty, OSF. Her sister is a principal of a school in Hong Kong. She taught a regular summer session in English and then visited her sister in Hong Kong.

"I was relaxed and enjoyed teaching the summer school," said Sister Nancy. "I had seniors in college who were studying for their final exam in English. Most of it was oral conversation, but they also needed writing, reading and listening."

She had a graduate student helping her, who was getting her master's in English. If Sister Nancy was explaining something involved like adverb clauses or putting sentences together, her graduate assistant would explain it in Chinese to the students. She added that it was nice to team teach with someone who knew the language.

According to Sister Nancy, many of the students speak English very well after having English classes all through grade school and high school.

"By the time they get to university, they are fluent in processing," said Sister Nancy.

She commented that teaching has helped her learn Chinese. She will tell the students something in English, and they will tell her how to say it in Chinese. She noted that she likes to memorize phrases or short sentences.

Along with serving in China, Sister Nancy is the director of Dorothy Day Retreat in Sioux City. Dorothy Day Retreat celebrated its 15th anniversary on Jan. 22 with an open house. The office really opened in August but since Sister Nancy will be in China the celebration was held in January.

"The enjoyment that I experience and the encouragement that I experience from the Sioux City community is that there are so many sincere spiritual seekers who want to pursue a deepening of their spiritual journey," said Sister Nancy. "I am privileged to have the chance to companion people in that spiritual search."

During Sister Nancy's absence, Sister Marcia Baumert, FSPA, will keep Dorothy Day Retreat up and running. Baumert will be available to facilitate retreats as well as open the house for people to have a private retreat. If people would like to hold a retreat at Dorothy Day Retreat while Sister Nancy is in China, they can contact Sister Marcia by phone at (402) 372-3276 or email at mbaumert@juno.com.

"This is an ecumenical retreat center so there are many different faith traditions and people who have left their own tradition and are searching trying to re-find it or find what will serve them best at this stage in their lives," said Sister Nancy. "The diversity of religious effort and spiritual journeying is fascinating to me."