Fort Smith Times Record
The three nuns talk in a small room filled with books. The far wall is lined with windows overlooking rolling green hills and pastures.
Fort Smith Times Record
The three nuns talk in a small room filled with books. The far wall is lined with windows overlooking rolling green hills and pastures.
The women discuss their passion for continuing the Hesychia House of Prayer, which Sister Louise Sharum started with three other nuns from the order of the St. Scholastica Benedictine Sisters in 1981.
The house of prayer, at 204 St Scholastica Rd in New Blaine, serves as a resting place for weary travelers eager to commune with the divine. The grounds are home to four hermitages, which these travelers make their homes during their stays.
Sharum studied the movement that led to the house of prayer at Texas Tech University and made it the subject of her doctoral dissertation. Once Sharum graduated, she returned to St. Scholastica in Fort Smith excited to put her new idea into practice.
Before moving to Fort Smith, the St. Scholastica sisters arrived in New Blaine in 1879. It was this property that Sharum converted into the Hesychia, which Sharum said was meant to be “a place just to be able to have silence and prayer."
Of the three nuns who make their home at Hesychia, two of them arrived about a year ago, effectively saving the house of prayer and allowing it to continue.
"And then as time went on we didn't have enough people to recruit as one by one we had to drop out healthwise, agewise, and then we needed some people to carry on and the lord sent these two folks, and we've been living happily ever after," Sharum said.
Lisa Atkins, now the director of the house of prayer, and Anita DeSalvo are Sisters of Mercy and served at the Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers prior to coming to Hesychia.
Atkins worked for 24 years as a registered nurse and 18 years as a nurse practitioner, and DeSalvo worked in a non-clinical position in the education and missions sectors of the hospital for 20 years.
Atkins and DeSalvo had been going to the house of prayer for 18 years before they joined Hesychia.
They developed a closer relationship to the community as DeSalvo cared for her dying mother. DeSalvo's mother lived in the area, and DeSalvo and Atkins began traveling to tend to her every weekend. Atkins eventually began working virtually and lived with her mother full-time.
DeSalvo would stay with her mother, and Atkins would stay at the house. During Atkin's many stays, she began to help Sharum with the upkeep of the grounds.
“I thought I was just cleaning toilets or you know doing whatever, but then in the meantime, people are talking to me, and one thing kind of led to another, and so it was sort of that God coming in through the backdoor helping me to say yes to the ministry of healing in a non-clinical way," Atkins said.
Sharum eventually asked Atkins to be the director of the house, and after prayerful discernment, Atkins accepted.
DeSalvo came to the house of prayer for a two-month sabbatical after her mother's death. It was then that the Lord spoke to her and spurred her to stay at Hesychia as well.
The sisters welcome people of all religions to their home. People pay as they can to stay. If they are able, the women ask that people pay $50 a day for their first seven days.
Atkins said she has found that people who can generally pay more than the asked $50, offsetting the cost of those who are unable to contribute money.
The hermitages come supplied with kitchens. The sisters ask that all visitors bring their own food and transportation. They cannot pick people up from the airport or ferry them through town.
Many people come from neighboring states, Atkins said. During this time of COVID, the women also ask that all their visitors be vaccinated.
While people stay at Hesychia, the nuns allow them solitude to seek out God, but if needed, they also provide prayer and fellowship.
Hesychia is a place of peace that allows people to re-center themselves amid the beauty of nature, the nuns agreed sitting amid their books in sight of the gentle foothills of the Ouachitas.
“We come here sort of empty, right? Because we’ve given all we’ve got, and we needed to be refueled by God," Atkins said, stating that the house of prayer provides people that time of rejuvenation.
Alex Gladden is a University of Arkansas graduate. She previously reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Jonesboro Sun before joining the Times Record. She can be contacted at [email protected].