To die for others is perhaps the ultimate sacrifice. However, to “die to the world” (to reject worldly values about material things) in order to help its weak, lost, suffering, and addicted so they may have a better life is an ongoing sacrifice. It is one that is based upon love; and love is the driving force behind the work of the woman nominated here.

Amy Betros of St. Luke's Mission of Mercy in inner city Buffalo, NY took what to most people would seem to be an inconceivable risk in 1994 when she sold her house and successful restaurant and bought a shuttered Catholic church and turned it into a Mission for society’s “rejects” and marginalized.

The Mission is a place where people are introduced to how love and forgiveness work in a practical way. Betros already had developed a foreshadowing of this when she offered meals at her restaurant free of charge to people who couldn’t afford to eat and distributed food out of the back of it to anyone in need. Furthermore, she opened her home to prostitutes, the mentally ill and the addicted. Not your typical businessperson or homeowner. To implicitly trust this much is difficult for people. But trust is a key element of love.

She continued this after opening the Mission. She sacrifices her life daily, “dying to the world” so that “others might live.” St. Luke’s is an oasis of acceptance and love where people of all backgrounds come to heal their emotional and spiritual wounds. The poor and hungry find aid, sustenance and even a home, here, but the affluent find spiritual succor, too. They learn from Amy’s example and make a sacrifice of their time, talent and treasure. The work of the volunteers is critical. Regardless of background, their own sacrifice helps the Mission, as it receives no funding from Church or Government.

Amy is the genuine article in the practice of her convictions. All people are welcome. Just as Christ dined with prostitutes, tax collectors and other “unsavory” people, Amy Betros does not cast a judgmental glance upon people based on their state in life or where “they’re at” now. She teaches them, as did Christ, and they are made new. If you wander about the Mission, the place is warm and welcoming and an energetic bustle of human activity, all geared towards healing the human spirit of its ills.