Sr Helen Ahern, a nun with the Medical Missionaries of Mary, was taking some well-earned leave with her family at home in Ireland when she became aware of the famine crisis in Niger, writes David Adams
Her friend of many years, Sr Nina Underwood (who had to retire from the Medical Missionaries to care for her elderly mother), saw news footage of the tragedy at home in the US.
Without consulting one another, each decided instantly that she should put her years of service nursing in Africa at the disposal of the unfortunate people of Niger.
Though I couldn't have known it at the time, it was my remarkable good fortune to have volunteered for the same humanitarian organisation as the two sisters (though for a much shorter duration) and that we would travel together to Niger.
Though to be honest, I was in two minds when Goal - the organisation for which each of us volunteered - told me I was to meet a nun at Dublin airport, travel to Paris to meet another nun, and then on to Niger.
On the one hand, I was quite relieved to have any company at all.
I had to pick up my entry visa for Niger in Paris, stay overnight there, and then complete the second leg of my journey the next morning.
Unable to understand anything beyond the most basic of French, I would probably need all the help I could get.
But never having actually met a nun, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, either.
I certainly didn't fancy spending a couple of days listening to two sisters prattling on about religion or, worse still, them virtually ignoring me when they twigged I was Protestant.
As it turned out, I needn't have worried.
Helen and Nina - "You don't have to keep calling us Sister, David" - are two of the loveliest and most remarkable people I have ever met.
Helen (66) has spent over 38 years living and working in various parts of west Africa.
On account of the financial pressure that the Medical Missionaries of Mary is constantly under, during service sisters are entitled to only about three months' home leave once every three years. So, for them and their colleagues, it really is a case of quickly acclimatising to your surroundings and becoming part of the local population.
As a nurse and missionary, Helen has worked with deprived people in some of the most dangerous parts of Africa. For the past eight years she has been part of a small community in Kampala, Uganda, where among her many other activities she visits and ministers to both male and female prisoners.
She told me of how heartbroken she is each time one of her friends - and she counts every prisoner she visits as her friend - is found to have Aids and her terrible sense of loss when any of them dies.
Also of how, in complete and horrific contrast, some of the long-term prisoners are actually disappointed if they aren't diagnosed with Aids because such diagnosis entitles them to the small "luxury" of a mattress.
Before retiring, Nina (63) spent over 30 years working in various parts of Africa as well. During her service, she qualified as a pilot to help set up field hospitals in remote parts of Kenya; worked in the infamous Kibera slum in Nairobi on health education and Aids awareness; and, only a month after arriving in the country, was kidnapped and held hostage for 10 days by a rebel group in Sudan. On release, she was expelled though readmitted after a month.
As she told me her story, I couldn't help thinking that nothing on this earth would have coaxed me to go back near the place again.
But then very few of us are made of the same stuff as Nina and Helen.
During my travels with the sisters - which included a 1,000-km one-day car journey from one part of Niger to another - my admiration for them grew by the minute. Over decades they have dedicated themselves to trying to ease misery and suffering in some of the most dangerous countries in Africa.
And yet, even now in the latter part of their lives, as soon as they became aware of the situation in Niger they were driven to volunteer for service with Goal - how could one do other than admire them? On meeting, they befriended me immediately and, in a deliberately non-intrusive way, have advised me and generally looked after my welfare and interests ever since.
I need hardly add, I suppose, that like every other Goal volunteer here in Niger, both ladies report for duty early each morning to spend at least 12 hours in the field - sometimes having to travel 100 km from our distribution site - seeing to the needs of malnourished mothers and children.
There is never as much as a hint of complaint from them: just good humour and a real concern for others.
Sometimes your faith in humanity really can be restored - Helen and Nina have certainly restored mine.