LEVEL 1
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was a small, quiet nun. She lived for God and
helped poor people on the streets of India. She was very famous
for her work. She died in 1997, but people remember her today.
People in many countries love her. This is her story.
Penguin Readers are simplified texts which provide a step-by-step
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Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter
Easystarts 200 headwords
Level 1 300 headwords Beginner
Level 2 600 headwords Elementary
Level 3 1200 headwords Pre-Intermediate
Level 4 1700 headwords Intermediate
Level 5 2300 headwords Upper-Intermediate
Level 6 3000 headwords Advanced
Original British English
Number of words (excluding activities): 2,133
Cover photograph reproduced courtesy of TopFoto.co.uk
Audio CD pack also available
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Mother Teresa
D’Arcy Adrian-Vallance
9781405881524_CVR.indd 1 30/10/08 11:21:42
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There are a lot of good people in the world, but not
many of them are world-famous. Mother Teresa was a
small, quiet nun. She died in 1997 in India, but people in
many countries remember her. They talk about her and
they love her. Why? Read her story. The answer is here.
Agnes Gonxha
For her first eighteen years, her name was not Teresa. It
was Agnes. Her family name was Bojaxhiu. There were
two children in the family before her: a boy and a girl.
Then little Agnes Gonxha came into the world on
26 August 1910.
Her mother and father were from Albania, but they
lived in the town of Skopje. At that time, Skopje was in
Serbia. They had a good home because her father did well
in his work.
Then her father suddenly died. Agnes was only eight
years old. Her sister was fourteen and her brother was
eleven. Things were difficult for Agnes’s mother, but she
was strong for her children. She worked and did well. She
loved the children, and they had a happy home.
There were some poor people near their home. These
people did not have much money for food, and Agnes’s
mother was good to them too. She was a Christian – a
Catholic – and God was very important to her. She prayed
to God every evening with her children, and they all went
to church every week.
At the church, there were stories about Christian
missionaries in India and poor African countries. These
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She said goodbye to her family. She was eighteen years old.
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people lived for God. They went to India and Africa
because they wanted to bring God’s love to poor people
there. Some of the missionaries in India were men from
Skopje.
Agnes loved hearing about the work of these
missionaries. She started to think, ‘What am I going to
do for God?’ She wanted to live for God, but how?
Did she want to be a nun? Did she want to live only for
God? She prayed for answers.
After five years, the answer came to her. She wanted
to live only for Him. She wanted to be a nun in India.
Her mother was very unhappy about this. She loved
her daughter and did not want to say goodbye to her.
She went to her bedroom and stayed there all day. But
after a day and a night, she came out and said to Agnes,
‘Put your hand in His hand and walk with Him.’
On 25 September 1928, Agnes said goodbye to her
friends and her home in Skopje. At the station, she said
goodbye to her family. She was eighteen years old, and
she did not see her mother or her sister again.
To India
She went by train and boat to Ireland. There she went to
the home of the Loreto nuns. She wanted to be a Loreto
nun because many of them worked in India.
Agnes stayed with the nuns at Loreto House in Dublin
for six weeks.Then she was on a boat again – to India. She
was now Sister Teresa.
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These days, you can get from Ireland to India very
quickly, but in those days people were on the boat for
seven weeks. It went from Ireland to Spain, then across
the Mediterranean Sea to Suez in Egypt, down the Red
Sea, across the Arabian Sea to Sri Lanka, and then up to
Calcutta in India. From Calcutta, she went by train to
Darjeeling. Calcutta was a big place with a lot of noise, but
Darjeeling was quiet and beautiful.
Young Sister Teresa did not know much English, but
she was a good student. She was friendly too and she often
smiled. She was very happy there. After two years, her
English was good, and she started to teach children in the
nuns’ school.
Then she moved to one of the Loreto nuns’ schools
in Calcutta. Its name was Loreto Entally, a big school for
girls. Many of the girls were from poor families.
The school days started early in the morning, but the
nuns’ days started before that. Every morning, the nuns
prayed for a long time. Then they worked in the school
in the morning and the afternoon. They worked in the
evening too, because many of the girls lived at the school.
After a long day, they prayed again and then went to
bed.
The nuns did not have holidays. They did not listen
to music or go shopping. They did not see their families.
But they were happy because they lived for God. They
were happy and strong all day because they remembered
His love every morning.
Sister Teresa liked teaching, and she was good at it. She
was a teacher at Loreto Entally for twelve years, and then,
from 1944, she was the head teacher for four years.
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Darjeeling was quiet and beautiful.
