Amandina of Schakkebroek

Saint Amandina of Schakkebroek (28 December 1872 – 9 July 1900), born Pauline Jeuris, was a Franciscan sister of Belgian origin who served in China.

On 2 August 1892 she went to Hasselt to assist the household of her sister Anna, struck by illness and widowed with four children.

Her humor, friendliness, and healing with laughter gained her the esteem of the Chinese, who called her "the laughing foreigner".

[1] In the course of the Boxer Rebellion, an edict was issued on 1 July 1900 which, in substance, said that the time of good relations with European missionaries and their Christians was now past: that the former must be repatriated at once and the faithful forced to apostatize, on penalty of death.

With true Franciscan joy she and her companions met their deaths singing the Te Deum, the hymn of thanksgiving.

Saint Amandina at her mission post in Taiyuan , China. (Painting in the choir of the "Chinese Chapel" in the Amandina museum)