BOB ABERNETHY (anchor): The continuing shortage of priests and nuns has forced some roman catholic parishes -- and schools -- to recruit clergy and teachers from abroad. There are cultural differences to overcome, but there are also mutual benefits. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Farmers around the San Joaquin Valley town of Lemoore, California have looked to mother nature for good crops ... to Uncle Sam for crop price supports ... and to Sister Carmen and several other nuns from India for a Catholic education for their kids.

About a decade ago, Mary Immaculate Queen looked like it would pass into history like so many other small town Catholic schools ... unable to pay competitive teacher salaries or to find the nuns who historically provided inexpensive teachers for Catholic schools.

That's when the regional bishop wrote to Bangalore, India -- to the Carmelite Sisters of St. Therese asking if they would take on the school in Lemoore. The current mother general, Victorine Verghese, says her predecessor felt compelled to respond.

SISTER VICTORINE VERGHESE (Carmelite Sisters of St. Therese): We felt that the missionaries [who] have come, [in] earlier days, and given their lives to us, especially in India, to uplift us and now when they are in need, we felt it is our duty to share what we have.

DE SAM LAZARO: India has a small but thriving Catholic population of about 15 million. There's no accurate count, but church organizations say there are probably several thousand arrangements that have sent Indian priests and nuns to America. In the U.S., they run parish churches, nursing homes and schools, particularly in rural communities like Lemoore, where Father Eric Swearingen is the solitary priest ... a rare one who also is a Lemoore native.

FATHER ERIC SWEARINGEN: Last year we had a jubilee celebration in Tulare, and as part of that the Bishop gathered all the sisters who are involved in teaching in our schools. And he noted, himself, that the majority -- large majority of the sisters -- were from outside the diocese, in fact [from] outside of our country.

DE SAM LAZARO: Sister Marian Abraham was first to arrive in Lemoore, eight years ago, to take over as principal.

SISTER MARIAN ABRAHAM (Carmelite Sisters of St. Therese): They never expected that we could speak English and we could be one with them -- they never expected that. Never. And one parent told me, one board member told me, "we crossed our fingers when we heard that you all were coming here. ..."

One year I didn't change anything, I just learned the way of the people, of the children, then there were teachers, some teachers who were with me, who helped me a lot.

DE SAM LAZARO: The Indian nuns have relied heavily on their lay American teachers to learn the host culture, and also the language ... having come with a very differently flavored English.

SISTER CARMEN D'ABREO (Carmelite Sisters of St. Therese): Once we got used to it, we attended some courses, it was fine.

DAYNA GILKEY (parent): When we first met Sr. Carmen -- she was my daughter's kindergarten teacher -- we had a language difficulty, my husband and I, because we're not familiar with the Indian nuns as a lot of the other families were. And so we were amazed at the end of the year, our daughter was reading and spoke fine English, and we thought, "how is she doing this with the sisters?"

DE SAM LAZARO: While the Indian sisters have adjusted to American teaching methods and learning habits, they've brought an imprint of their own to life at Mary Immaculate Queen school. Discipline is rigid and the routine rich in rituals, some rarely seen any more in American churches and schools:

Besides the morning prayer, there are individual confessions, rosaries, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

SISTER ABRAHAM: There is a thirst in these children and the parents, too, to know [how] to go closer to God, but they don't get any chance. Maybe they are taken up with so much materialism, consumerism, you know, making money. They don't have time to give [to] God.