At Home in Many Worlds

“At Home in Many Worlds” is a memoir by Sister Jane Fell, a Catholic Medical Mission Sister who devoted nearly 50 years of her religious life to providing health services as a Christian missionary. Her personal journey takes her from a small family farm in western Iowa around the globe, living for extended periods in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Uganda, with a few years in United States missions. Each setting is illustrated with candid photographs.

This book’s locales evoke world headlines: Pakistan shortly after it became a nation, Afghanistan at the time of the king’s exile, Uganda as that proud country rebuilt from the ashes of the regime of Idi Amin.

Sister Jane tells her story with a steadfast assumption that everything experienced happens for a reason, and that every story will end as God wills it. Her memoirs are a recounting of action, not dwelling on the wonders of God’s protection, but demonstrating how acceptance of that protection can help empower.

Sister Jane’s contemporaries—people who remember religious sisters as a prominent part of their lives—will welcome this “insider’s view” of religious life in the missions; younger Americans will be provided a new perspective of the hands-on help provided to the people of emerging nations, motivated by love of God.

This memoir begins with life on the Iowa farm in the 1930s and concludes with her return to the Medical Mission Sister’s United States’ headquarters at Fox Chase, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Photographs, many in color, contribute to understanding the setting in which Sister Jane provided care and service to rural communities.