When travelling India, met a couple who were attending an Ashram, in Kerala, they relayed how they worked in Kalighat for 1 day as the young mans father had offered to pay for their entire years travels, if they did at least 1 day Volunteering at Nirmal Hriday.
This conversation, put the thought in my mind to volunteer there, the couple didn’t seem to have had a profound experience, yet I wondered that the father must have, to have funded such a thing. Then, when passing through Calcutta on the way to Thailand early December 1994, spoke to some volunteers in a cafe, they spoke of the Spirit of the place, the work. A month later in February 1995 I had the great honour to volunteer there myself.
Fate led me to meet the Mother, as my first day was a Sunday, and the volunteers went to Mother House for a 6am Mass, not wishing to hear an Australian Couple Preach about the Calendar Method of contraception, led to me leaving and meeting Mother in the Chapel doorway, wonderful moment which dissolved much of the nervousness about whether I could handle working in a place I’d heard such things about.