Video features Sister Michael Therese Ryan, the ‘Flying Nun’ operating under Mike Stimac’s UMATT program. She is seen flying the small Piper Super Cub with fabric wings. This video was recorded prior to the arrival of the new, all metal Cessna 206 donated by the Wings of Hope founders and their Turkana Desert Fund. The following video description is from the RTE website:
‘Turkana’ was the second programme in the series Radharc in Africa which looked at the work of Catholic missionaries in east Africa. In Turkana, northern Kenya, Father Peter Lemass reports on the work of the Medical Missionaries of Mary at Lorugumu.
At Lorugumu, four nuns run a medical dispensary, a small hospital and a school. They bring aid to a desert region and people that have been devastated by famine.
Sister Bernadette Gilsenan from Rathgar in Dublin is responsible for the education of the children attending the mission school.
Sister Marie Bernard O’Brien from Castlemaine in Kerry qualified as a doctor at University College Dublin. She works with the sick in the region.
Sister Campion Campbell from Ipswich in England trained as a nurse before becoming a nun. She is the superior of the little convent and matron of the hospital and dispensary at Lorugumu.
Sister Michael Therese Ryan from Boston, trained as a surgical technician, is also a qualified pilot, known as the flying nun. She transports medical staff and supplies across huge distances in the desert around Lorugumu.
The women talk about their work in the Turkana region and the challenges brought by living in an area that suffers from famine and extremes of weather with drought, flash floods and mini hurricanes.