In a similar manner, in 897, the Canonesses of St. Augustine in Belgium answered the request of a missionary priest in Mulagumudu, India, for help with an orphanage he ran there. They sent several of their members to serve at this facility. Although they found, upon their arrival, that the priest had since died, they took on the care of the orphans he left behind. Not long after their arrival, and led by their Mother Superior, Mother Marie Louise De Meester, the Sisters went on to form an independent religious congregation called the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine, composed of many local Indian women as well as Europeans. In 963, however, inspired by the Scheut Fathers with whom they frequently worked and from whom they received much spiritual support, the congregation chose to drop its monastic element, and transformed itself into the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.