Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in a catholic family in Skopje (Macedonia). Her father was a construction businessman; he was also selling pharmaceuticals. He died when Agnes was 7 years old; the reason for his death is unknown.

Since then, Agnes developed a close relationship with her mother and like her, became a very devoted catholic who was always engaged in the life of her local church. Her modest family house was always open to the hungry and poor, and Agnes was learning how to share everything she had with others.

She was 12 years old when she felt she wanted to become a nun for the first time. Six years later, she understood that her calling was ministering to the poor. She left her family, whom she never saw again, and went to Ireland to the Loreto Abbey. In Ireland, she prepared herself for the mission she was about to participate in. She chose to be named after Saint Therese de Lisieux.

Other nuns recall Theresa as an ordinary girl. They said she was simple, ordinary, delicate and cheerful, but also entirely free from egoism and able to sacrifice a lot. She did not hesitate to speak her mind when something bad was happening.

A year later she left for novitiate to the state of Darjeeling, where she took her first religious vows. She became a teacher and tutor in a school for poor Bengalese girls. She learned the Bengalese and Hindi languages. In 1937 she took her solemn vows. Then, people started calling her a mother like all other Sisters of Loreto. She became a director.

Nine years later she experienced what she later called ‘the call within the call.’ On a train from Calcutta to Darjeeling she claimed to see Jesus Christ, who ordered her to live in the slums of Calcutta and help the sick and poor, which was in accordance with her beliefs. Mother Teresa believed that a prayer alone without action did not suffice.

In order to do that, she had to receive bishop’s consent since it meant the violation of her religious vows. In 1948 she was released from the clause. She left the Loreto convent and put on the cheapest white sari becoming the sister of the slums. She started by gathering volunteers from a college, which allowed her to found a school under the open sky in the slums of Calcutta – Motijhil. She organized begging expeditions. In a building she received from the city authorities, she arranged a house for people dying from tuberculosis and leper. Then, she organized a colony for lepers, an orphanage, a family clinic and a network of medical units.

Her biggest asset was her imitators and students. In 1950, the Pope permitted Mother Teresa to start the diocesan congregation that became the Missionaries of Charity. The sisters spend most of their time on streets, walking always in pairs. They travel in the cheapest way possible – they use public transportation, they walk on foot. They cannot accept food or beverages from anyone except their convent and workplace. They have only three cotton saris, a rosary, a straw mattress and one steel plate. Currently, there are more than 4000 sisters that belong to the Missionaries of Charity. When Mother Teresa was alive, the Missionaries of Charity founded their convents in 123 countries and Mother Teresa became the most recognizable leader of the humanitarian aid movement in the world.

Mother Teresa combined empathy with practical thinking and great organizational and management skills. At the beginning, Indian government offered her free flights. She gave the limousine that she received from Pope Paul VI for lottery, simultaneously, publicizing the affair. Thus, she was able to raise more money than if she had sold the limousine through an announcement in a newspaper.

She was charismatic and had high esteem. When the Soviet Union did not allow the Missionaries of Charity to found their convent within its borders, she sent name day wishes to President Gorbachev. She begged President Bush and Saddam Husain to cease war.

She was able to connect people of different faith and cultures. In Beirut, which was troubled by a serious religious conflict, she kept guard over Christian and Muslim children. She called herself a friend of Indira Gandhi even when the prime minister of India propagated the law on sterilization, to which Mother Teresa opposed.

She always spoke her mind and used simple words to describe her views. When she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 in Oslo, she said that in her opinion, the worst enemy of peace was not war, but abortion.

When she talked about herself, she always said she was just a tool, a small pencil in the hands of God, who shows his modesty using as weak and imperfect tools as her.