These Co-Workers were drawn to Mother Teresa's work with the very poor, and their constitution specified that they wanted to help serve the poorest of the poor, without regard to caste or creed, in a spirit of prayer and sacrifice. Dedication to the Very Poor

Mother Teresa's group continued to expand throughout the 1970s, opening works in such new countries as Jordan (Amman), England (London), and the United States (Harlem, New York City). She received both recognition and financial support through such awards as the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and a grant from the Joseph Kennedy Jr. Foundation. Benefactors regularly would arrive to support works in progress or to stimulate the Sisters to open new ventures. Mother Teresa received increasing attention in the media, especially through a British Broadcasting Corporation special interview that Malcolm Muggeridge conducted with her in London in 1968. In 1971, on the occasion of visiting some of her sisters in London, she went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to pray with the Irish women for peace and to meet with lan Paisley, a militant Protestant leader. In the same year she opened a home in Bangladesh for women raped by Pakistani soldiers in the conflicts of that time. By 1979 her groups had more than 200 different operations in over 25 countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon. In 1986 she persuaded President Fidel Castro to allow a mission in Cuba. The hallmark of all of Mother Teresa's works--from shelters for the dying to orphanages and homes for the mentally ill--continued to be service to the very poor. In 1988 Mother Teresa sent her Missionaries of Charity into Russia and also opened a home for AIDS patients in San Francisco, California. In 1991 she returned home to Albania and opened a home in Tirana, the capital. At this time, there were 168 homes operating in India. Later in 1995, plans materialized to open homes in China. Despite the appeal of this saintly work, all commentators remarked that Mother Teresa herself was the most important reason for the growth of her order and the fame that came to it. Muggeridge was struck by her pleasant directness and by the otherworldly character of her values. He saw her as having her feet completely on the ground, yet she seemed almost unable to comprehend his suggestion (meant as an interviewer's controversial prod) that trying to save a few of India's abandoned children was almost meaningless, in the face of the hordes whom no one was helping. He realized that Mother Teresa had virtually no understanding of a cynical or godless point of view that could consider any human being less than absolutely valuable.