Friday, April 15, 2011 03:06 AM
By Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The nun looks at the painting of Jesus surrounded by sheep and sees "a search-and-rescue mission."
After all, according to the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus will seek out and welcome back wayward members of his flock, just as a good shepherd would.
Sister Michael Marie, 36, travels the world to do the same for animals that are left alone, injured and hungry after disasters.
She has worked on the Gulf Coast and in Chile, Brazil and Japan to serve all of God's creatures, including dogs, cats and other helpless animals. She always wears her full nun's habit, even while helping with a spay or neuter operation.
Today, she leaves for another trip to Japan, this one about a week long, to help animals affected by the tsunami, earthquake and radiation from damaged power plants. She returned from her first relief trip to Japan on Tuesday to perform some of her local duties, such as distributing food to the poor.
Sister Michael Marie lives with another nun in Clarksburg, in northwestern Ross County. They are part of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, a tiny order of missionary women who focus on acts of mercy for people in prison, hospitals and nursing homes.
Sister Michael Marie, who worked as a veterinary technician before joining the convent at age 24, does her animal-mission work through a disaster-aid group called Kinship Circle.
The welfare of animals during a disaster is critically important, said the soft-spoken nun.
In disasters, animals are "a great consolation for their people, when so many things are changing or uncertain," she said. And, "when you help the animals, you automatically help the people," because then they don't have to direct energy or resources toward keeping their pets alive.
In Japan, Sister Michael Marie entered radiation zones that had been evacuated to find pets that residents had said they had to abandon. People left their dogs and cats in their homes with food and water, thinking they might be gone only a few days, but the government wouldn't let them back in because of the health risks.
The nun and other volunteers accept the risks and enter the evacuated areas despite the ban, looking for animals that have been reported. They take food and water to the animals they can't remove.
These "ghost towns," are eerie places with intact homes, no people and packs of dogs roaming the streets, she said.
The once-friendly animals are thinner and distrustful of humans one month after the disaster, Sister Michael Marie said, but she hasn't yet been bitten.
Kinship Circle works with a group of Japanese animal-welfare organizations trying to rescue animals in hard-hit, remote areas such as Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures.
The shelters and supplies set up now are not enough, said Brenda Shoss, executive director of Kinship Circle.
Most of the human shelters won't let dogs in, and animals left caged or chained at homes have no chance, she said. The volunteers rescue animals inside radiation zones for which there are specific requests and the ones that appear near death.
That desperation is why so many of the volunteers will risk even radiation exposure to help the creatures, Shoss said: "A tank couldn't stop them. The Taliban couldn't stop them from saving a dog. They are relentless."
Sister Michael Marie is no exception.
"She's out there in a full habit, and there's nothing that scares her," Shoss said. "She'll go in the jungle and walk across rickety boards over a Brazil river, and she loves animals."
The nun said she tries to help the humans, too. Her luggage includes food and clothing for the Japanese.
Humans have a responsibility to "respond with care to restore (animals) to wholeness and healthiness" after disasters, said the Rev. Ron Atwood, a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in the Harrison West neighborhood. St. Francis is the patron saint of animals.
"Caring for other creatures does not need to drain our attention or draw our attention away from caring for human beings," Atwood said.
mheagney@dispatch.com
Sister Michael Marie of Clarksburg rescued a rabbit in Brazil in February. The nun, 36, travels the world to look after animals hurt or abandoned in natural disasters.
