WAYNESBURG -- When Sister Audrey Quinn entered the Benedictine Order in 1959, it seemed safe to assume that no one would be sending her gifts for Mother's Day.

"You never know where the Spirit will lead you," said Sister Audrey, 68, who nevertheless would be the recipient of hundreds of such gifts while raising 160 foster children over 18 years in Greene County.

Sister Audrey, who recently won national recognition for her work as a foster mother, grew up on the North Side and entered the Benedictines because she loved the sisters at St. Boniface Church and school near her home. She, too, taught school for decades, and one of her students in Donora was Sue Fazzini, who in turn joined the order in 1976.

As Catholic schools were closing in the 1980s, the two sisters prayed for God to lead them into a new ministry, meeting needs in places where no one else was available. From a Catholic directory, they learned that there were no Catholic sisters in Greene County, a place of deep, rural poverty.

In 1989, their superior offered a year's rent for an old farmhouse in Waynesburg but said one of the sisters must get a job while the other sought out a volunteer ministry. They moved in with just two cots, a card table, some chairs and two bureaus.

"We thought we should maybe start a house of prayer, but it seems as if the Spirit had other ideas," Sister Audrey said.

Sister Sue, now 54, took a job as an addictions counselor. Sister Audrey volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, a Christian nonprofit organization that builds affordable housing, until she saw a poster seeking local foster parents.

"We'd be great at that. We were teachers," said Sister Audrey, an only child.

"Are you nuts?" said Sister Sue, the second of 10 children.

But they prayed about it, and in 1990 began taking in teenage girls, up to six at a time.

All came from backgrounds of abuse and neglect. One girl arrived two years behind her grade level in school, where she had attended special education classes. The sisters soon realized that the only impediment to her learning was that she had constantly skipped school.

They worked with her guidance counselor, doubling her course load to catch up with her age group. She became the first in her family to graduate from high school and later from college. Her wedding picture is one of scores that cover the doors of two refrigerators in the sisters' kitchen.

"So many of these girls had never done homework, never had a routine. When they saw that they could succeed in school, you'd see a light bulb go on," Sister Audrey said. "It was a gift, a pure gift."

It wasn't all work.

Sister Sue's sister worked at Saks Fifth Avenue, Downtown, and brought in their girls for mini-makeovers. One year at Halloween their girls dressed up to in nuns' habits, and the sisters watched from across the street as locals mistook them for the real thing and respectfully held doors for them.

"We took them into Children and Youth Services. The caseworkers just howled because the three of them ... " Sister Audrey's voice broke into laughter, indicating that the young ladies were not exactly convent material.

The sisters also took girls to visit Carl and Jeanne Sieg, who lived nearby. Mrs. Sieg was dying of cancer, her hair was falling out and she was amused to see that the teens had deliberately shaved parts of their own heads as a fashion statement.

After her death, Mr. Sieg bought the sisters a house in honor of his wife -- the dedication to her memory is on a plaque at the front door. In 1993, they moved to the large home, which commands an idyllic view of a neighboring horse farm.

After five years of teen girls, they began taking in younger girls and boys. The longest they kept a child was five years. Of the 160 who shared their home, about a dozen were adopted, while the others went home to their birth parents or stayed to adulthood.

The children called both sisters "Mom" and made them presents for Mother's Day.

"Because of the situation, we always made sure they honored their own mother," Sister Sue said. "The school was very good about that -- they'd let them make something for us and something for their mom. We wanted them to know that we weren't taking their moms' place, that they were sojourning through our home."

The sisters and their children also visited Sister Sue's family and the Benedictine motherhouse in Ross.

"We were like their grandparents," said Sister Benita Dematteis, the prioress.

"She's a real people person, very organized, with a great desire to minister," Sister Benita said of Sister Audrey. "She has a beautiful prayer life. She knows who she is as a person and is able to be sincere and open with others to help them find who they are and minister to their needs."

Raising the children also inspired the sisters to do more for the wider community.

A child without school shoes led to Heart 'n Soul, in which the sisters and volunteers from many churches throughout the region collect hundreds of new shoes for students.

A child who had received only a brush and comb one Christmas inspired their backpack project, in which another army of volunteers fills backpacks with toiletries and other necessities. There's another drive for used winter coats.

"It's hard to take any credit for it, because so many people are involved," Sister Audrey said, citing a single seventh-grade girl from St. Ferdinand parish in Cranberry who collected 200 coats last year.

John Lohr finds Sister Audrey too modest. He and his wife had raised three children and were living in Carmichaels, Greene County, when a social worker informed them that a relative's four children had been in foster care for two years and would be placed with adoptive parents if no family member wanted them.

The relative was estranged from the family and the Lohrs hadn't known her children had been removed after allegations of abuse. He quit his job as a social worker to stay home with them.

The two youngest, a 7-month-old and a toddler, came to the Lohrs from the sisters. The love showered by the sisters on the little ones was apparent through the transition, Mr. Lohr said.

The sisters carefully prepared lists of each child's likes and dislikes, along with complete medical histories. Each time the children came for a transitional visit, the sisters sent a toy or other beloved object to leave at the Lohrs' home.

All foster parents are required to keep "life books" with pictures of the children, Mr. Lohr said, but the book compiled by the sisters was something special.

"The sisters must have spent a tremendous amount of time on these. There were photos of Christmas and Halloween and swimming and picnics, a whole timeline of their time together," he said.

Sister Audrey is still their guardian angel, bringing them milk and peanut butter and shoes. After learning of the Lohrs' broken stove, she arrived with cash for a new one.

When insurance wouldn't pay for the little girl's glasses, Mr. Lohr arrived at the optometrist's office to find that "the nuns had already paid for them.

"They cost $260. There is so much they have done for these kids and for us," he said.

The sisters said the help comes from God.

Right after she learned of the broken stove, Sister Audrey said, a family called from out of the blue and offered to help someone in need. When she hesitantly mentioned the stove, they gladly sent money.

At the time of the eyeglasses crisis, another woman sent a similar e-mail to Sister Sue. No sooner had Sister Sue replied about the little girl's need for glasses than her phone rang.

"[The woman] was crying. She said, 'That little girl is me' and told about her own eyesight troubles long ago. She paid for the glasses," Sister Audrey said. "Miracles like that happen all the time."

In the past three years, the sisters have cared for many infants, including those born addicted to drugs. The sisters got little sleep, and by last year were exhausted and in need of a break from foster care.

"We prayed about whether we should continue, or which way to go," said Sister Audrey, who was depressed without the children.

Then she saw a newspaper ad seeking a director of the Salvation Army Service Center in Greene County, which provides social services including help with utilities, food, clothing and disaster response.

When she applied, "I thought, this is a God thing. She is a perfect fit," said Fran Brace, who oversees the service extension department for the Western Pennsylvania Division of the Salvation Army. Because the Army is a Protestant denomination, it's highly unusual to have a Catholic nun in charge of a center.

"She's very humble, never brags at all," Ms. Brace said. "She never even told me about the award."

In February, Sister Sue spotted an entry form for the CVS pharmacy chain's "For All the Ways You Care" contest to honor caregivers. She thought of how Sister Audrey had done most of the parenting, especially during a year when Sister Sue was recovering from injuries received in a car crash.

Not even realizing that the contest involved prizes, she quickly filled out the 200-word essay and hit "send." Last month, they learned that Sister Audrey was one of 10 finalists; they both were flown last weekend to New York City for an awards ceremony, a Broadway show and an appearance on "Good Morning America."

The top prize of $25,000 went to another foster parent who specialized in caring for severely disabled children, but as a finalist Sister Audrey received $10,000.

The money will go toward more good works, the sisters said.

"But the wonderful thing about the contest is that, when you hear dire news all the time, it's nice to focus on people who are doing good. These were wonderful stories of giving from all over the United States," said Sister Audrey -- who still was tickled to be picked up in a limousine.

Back in Waynesburg, some of the foster teens the sisters raised now come to the Salvation Army center, sometimes for help themselves and other times to bring their friends.

"When you are truly open to the Spirit, what needs to happen will happen," Sister Sue said. "We do miss the kids terribly, but this seemed to be a way to help adults who are caring for the kids in a different way."