Sister Lorena Bolte will be remembered long and lovingly by many. Her tragic death July 4, 2007, leaves family, friends, and men and women religious in deep shock. At only 58 years of age she was in her prime as a sister, leader, and friend of those in her religious community. She celebrated 25 years of religious profession in 1993.

Sister Lorena was a master teacher, having begun her teaching career as an instructor at Luckey High School in Manhattan KS. As a missionary in Nigeria, she taught in Sokoto and in Gusau. During 20 years of missionary service she nurtured a fledgling indigenous congregation of Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena of Gusau, (a foundation of the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend) and no one rejoiced more than she did when the community grew to more than 50 sisters and became an independent congregation in April 2007. 

AFJN and the people of Africa lost a friend and an advocate when Sr. Lorena Bolte, OP, was killed in a car accident near Syracuse, Kansas on the fourth of July.  Sr. Lorena had been a member of the AFJN Board of Directors since December 2005, representing her community, the Dominicans of Great Bend, Kansas, of which she was the prioress. After spending twenty years in northern Nigeria, Sr. Lorena returned to the United States and became a dedicated advocate for justice for Africa.  She worked tirelessly in her days in Nigeria to empower African women, helping to establish and leading a congregation of Nigerian religious women in Gusau.  Her work there attained its goal when the congregation she founded finally became a diocesan congregation this past April, thus fully independent of the Motherhouse in Great Bend.