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Sister Barbara Collings Sister Barbara is one of 650 Medical Mission Sisters in 19 nations trying to be present to others in the spirit of Jesus the Healer.
Born in Oakland, California, Sister Barbara is a convert to Catholicism. She earned her R.N. at the Santa Rosa Junior College School of Nursing, and received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of San Francisco. As a student and young graduate nurse, her vocation was nurtured by other Sisters and a Jesuit priest who became her mentors. She entered the Medical Mission Sisters in 1953, and made her First Vows in 1956. Sister Barbara served for 12 years in Dacca, East Pakistan. “I did all kinds of nursing – supervision, administration, and teaching nurses and nurse-midwives. It was a time of finding out that with God’s grace and group support, one could achieve much more than one would ever have thought possible.” After obtaining a midwifery tutor diploma from New South Wales College of Nursing in Sydney, Australia, Sister Barbara was missioned to Holy Family Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. She directed the Midwifery Program, and later the School of Nursing, while training others for leadership. “This was a great experience: having the Pakistani educator work first with me and then, with my support, taking over the school.” Returning to the U.S., Sister Barbara spent 6 years as a nurse-midwife at the USPHS Indian Hospital in Tuba City, on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona. She then worked for 9 years as a nurse-midwife in a program of the University of California, San Diego. In addition, she spent one year at a freestanding birth center, and another year in nursing research at UCSD. She also gave volunteer nursing and midwifery care in Tijuana, Mexico. After retirement from UCSD, Sister Barbara completed a short-term assignment in our community-based health care program in Rubanda, Uganda. She remembers, “That year was a very special time, as well as a great renewal experience.” She also served as a health care coordinator for our Sisters in California, and in vocation promotion for our Community. In recent years, Sister Barbara has been a Eucharistic minister, a literacy tutor, and a hospital volunteer. She also has been active in a Bible Study group, at a soup kitchen, and with a parish group that supports mission work. She shares, “There is so much to be grateful for…many opportunities to study and grow personally and professionally, experiences of living and working with peoples of different cultures and nationalities, teaching others and being taught by them, visiting many of our missions and meeting the Sisters and their colleagues, and to have seen so much natural beauty.”
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