From 1929 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1946 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she started an open-air school for homeless children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming from various church organizations, as well as from the municipal authorities. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work, and on October 7, 1950, she received permission to start her own order "The Missionaries of Charity" whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. Today the order comprises some one thousand sisters and brothers in India, of whom a small number are non-Indian. Many have been trained as doctors, nurses and social workers, and are in a position to provide effective help for the slum population as well as undertaking relief work in connection with such natural catastrophes as floods, epidemics, famine and swarms of refugees.
("Mother Teresa").
Mother Teresa admitted that it was hard for her to leave Loreto and she considered it her greatest sacrifice, the most difficult thing she had ever done because of temporarily turning her back to her family and country to enter the world of religious life. She confessed how it gave her a feeling of enlightenment and satisfaction whenever she saw her fellow sisters serving the poor wholeheartedly and compassionately (Playfoot 15).
Volunteers joined the sisters and soon the Mission of Charity became an official religious community with more than seven hundred sisters and a hundred brothers. The mission not only founded schools but also opened clinics for dying patients.
