The tiny corporate jet landed at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta. Among those who had been waiting on the plane were the archbishop of Atlanta, a number of priests, and a young woman with a few cameras draped around her neck. As the jet’s tiny door opened, an equally diminutive woman stepped out onto the tarmac. Dressed in her distinctive blue and white sari and wearing her frayed blue woolen sweater, she began greeting the small entourage. Her birth name was Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu.

Most people knew her simply as Mother Teresa. 

            After greeting Archbishop Donoghue, she turned her attention to the young woman with the cameras. As a photographer, the young woman was not accustomed to drawing attention to herself, so she was stunned when Mother Teresa walked toward her and took her hands.

The young woman would later recall the “surprising strength” in her hands, and when she looked into her face she saw “the face of the mother and a look of unconditional love.” From that day on, Linda Schaefer knew her destiny would be inextricably linked to Mother Teresa and her work in India.

            Schaefer now lives in Ada and is a mass communications professor at East Central University. Before arriving here she led a unique life as a journalist.

She began her career as a journalist for CNN in 1985 after graduating from New York University. She soon realized the daily grind of the news business was not for her. She just wasn’t a “CNNer.”

 “I have always known who I am, and what I wanted to be,” Schaefer said. “My passion has always been for storytelling, especially the documentary aspect.”

She decided she would become a freelance photographer submitting projects to the Associated Press. Between assignments, she developed a number of documentary projects. She traveled to the southeastern basin of the Amazon to document the indigenous tribe known as the Xevante. She covered both the Democrat and Republican national conventions on the 1988 campaign trail. Romania, Croatia, and Bosnia were on her travel list.

And perhaps most remarkable of all, Schaefer traveled to Calcutta to follow Mother Teresa and document the work of her organization, the Missionaries of Charity. Schaefer would soon discover there were some trials that awaited her before she could even begin her photography.

Mother Teresa was an Albanian and a Roman Catholic sister. She founded Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950. The group ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned and dying. Upon Mother Teresa’s death in 1997 at age 87, Missionaries of Charity was operating 610 missions in 123 countries. Following her death, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

Schaefer had been in Calcutta working as a volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity for a few weeks when she decided to approach Mother Teresa for the second time about photographing the facilities operated by her order. She had asked Mother Teresa’s permission a few weeks earlier, to which Mother Teresa replied, “I don’t need photographers. I need volunteers.”

“Mother Teresa was testing my sincerity” Schaefer said. “She required the same kind of commitment from me as she would from anyone involved with her organization.”

Upon approaching her for the second time, Mother Teresa’s answer was again, “no.” The response caused Schaefer to burst into tears. Compassionate as she was, Mother Teresa finally complied. The next morning Mother Teresa signed a pink piece of paper giving Schaefer full permission to document the work. Schaefer had never been happier.

Of the many encounters Schaefer experienced, some of the most profound were of the people at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying.

One day, as Schaefer was taking photos, Mother Teresa stopped her and said, “Stop taking so many pictures. Go to the Home for the Dying.” This was the last thing Schaefer had wanted to do. Prior to her coming to Calcutta, Schaefer had dedicated two years to nursing her first husband, Ron, who was stricken with cancer.

“I didn’t really want to sit there and do that again,” Schaefer said with a twinge of melancholy in her voice. “I didn’t even know if I would be prepared to do that, or if I could give of myself. And instead I found that it was pretty easy for me. A lot of the time we don’t do things because we’re fearful. But when somebody throws us into the fire anyway, then a lot of times those demons don’t look so demonic.”

She found that helping with the dying was where she could be most useful because she had done it all before. It was a way for her to face her demons – and conquer them. By helping these people she was able to “let go of the grief that had built up with Ron’s passing.”

By being in Calcutta and working for dying and destitute people, Schaefer became more in touch with her passion.

“I’ve always been intimately involved with my work, but Mother Teresa, I think, enhanced the way I took pictures,” Schaefer said. “By putting the cameras down, you, in a way, become humbled in taking those tools away. Mother Teresa wanted me to connect to the work – her work – and that is what I try to translate to my students.” 

Schaefer hopes to continue making a difference in peoples’ lives through her teaching at East Central.

“I think I’m supposed to be here right now,” she said assuredly. “I don’t know if I’m going to be here forever, but for now I know I’m supposed to be here.”

To read more about Linda Schaefer’s story and to see some of the amazing photographs she captured on her visit to India and Mother Teresa’s world, check out her book at www.motherteresaofcalcutta.com, entitled “Come and See: A Photojournalist’s Journey into the World of Mother Teresa.”

A portion of the proceeds for the book will be donated to the Missionaries of Charity.