St. Paul Catholic Church and School in Jacksonville, Florida, USA is set to host four nuns from Nigeria on Jan. 25, 2023, the Feast Day of the Conversion of St. Paul, the church’s patron saint which is when the church will be celebrating its 100th anniversary.

The nuns are being sponsored by The Avodah Collective in Englewood, Colorado. Initially, they worked with a two-year agreement with Jacksonville-based Her Song, a nonprofit organisation founded by the Tim Tebow Foundation.

Avodah restores and reintegrates women survivors of sex trafficking. It trains Catholic religious sisters from five Catholic religious orders in trauma-informed care and helps find places throughout the country where they can fill out their vocation.

Avodah’s director of operations, Alexandra Tilton said, “We understand the background and the needs of the sisters to make their assignment additive to their vocational experience.”

St. Paul Catholic Church and School began in 1923 in a building that now houses just the school, which serves grades 1-8.

Originally, the church was on the first floor while the school for grades 1-7 was on the second floor, and a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph, who were teaching in the school, was on the third floor.

By the 1960s, the parish was employing lay teachers rather than having nuns teach. With no further need for a convent, the third floor was converted into a media room.

Now that the room is rarely used, the parish decided to convert the space back to its original use as a convent to provide housing for the nuns to live together while they are working here in Jacksonville.

The main celebration of the church’s anniversary will be the weekend of hold on Sept. 17, 2023, which is close to the date of the first mass celebrated at St. Paul. There will be a gala event one evening and a mass celebrated by the Bishop with a parish-wide brunch following the mass.

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