It was a relief. I had a pretty good idea of the religious orders in Australia. An Irish sister would share stories with us and one day she was talking about Jean Marie Vianney and she spoke of his influence on Mother Joseph Aubert who was the foundress of the Sisters of Compassion.  I went to Sister Damien and she got me material from Broken Hill about these Sisters of Compassion. I learnt that the Sisters of Compassion looked after poor people. That was the moment. It was at this time that I knew the Sisters of Compassion was the place for me. But deep down I hoped my parents would say no to my request to go to New Zealand to join the Sisters of Compassion. They did not say no. I asked Monsieur Sexton in Nyngan for a reference and I thought he would say no but he wrote a reference and Mother Veronica accepted me on Monsieur Sexton’s reference. Before I entered the Sisters of Compassion, Mother Veronica wrote me a beautiful letter. She told me it was a hard life of faith and you had to give yourself completely. After more than 60 years with the Sisters of Compassion, I have never had any doubts that I was not in the right place. Although there have been tough times I have always known that my choice to be a Sister of Compassion was right. It has been encapsulated in the following quote I don’t know where it comes from but it fits me: “It is a vocation of depth and magnitude. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, it is a call that no one accepts gladly, but one that requires a mysterious submission made in the creative darkness of faith and trust.” An important milestone was reached in September 2021 by Sister Barbara when she celebrated her Platinum jubilee after seventy years as a Sister of Compassion.