Frank Deaver Peace Editorials

     When Rotarians of Portugal’s District 1960 chose a 1993 Group Study Exchange team to visit Alabama, one of those they selected was Padre João Canha.  None of us could pronounce his name.  “Just call me ‘Father John,’” he told his new friends in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Decatur, and other host towns.

     With his outgoing personality and engaging laughter, he claimed a broad array of new friends in Alabama.  But we were his rich friends, for even the least affluent among us are many economic strata beyond his parishioners in Portugal.

     During a later visit to his home country, I accepted Father John’s invitation and spent a week with him in Alandroal—and no, I couldn’t pronounce the name of the town either, but I tried mightily to master both it and his given name.

     Father John’s parish is the county of Alandroal, bordering Spain in east central Portugal.  The county population is some 8000, and the namesake town has only about 2600.  There is so little population because there is so little economic opportunity.  Still, he ministers to twelve congregations, six services every Sunday.  The town church in Alandroal and two other congregations see him every week, and the other nine are on three-week rotation.

     I went with him to all of one Sunday’s services, with attendances ranging from fewer than ten to nearly a hundred.  The smallest was in an improvised chapel in a tiny village and the congregation consisted of eight elderly women, one coaxing along an apparently reluctant child.

     In all congregations, Father John calls each person by name.  He affectionately pats the heads of infants, playfully chats with children, tenderly comforts the sick and handicapped, and personally addresses the concerns of many others.  He genuinely cares, and they know it for it shows.

     These are his people.  He has been their shepherd for five years, and they have learned that he is truly their friend.  With such hard lives, they need a friend, for they live in an atmosphere of despair, hopelessness, resignation.

     Life is hard in Alandroal County because it is the leftover land, after the better properties to the north and west were claimed in earlier days.  To the north are rich deposits of excellent marble, and abundant crops in fertile soil.  But as far back as medieval days, that desirable land was claimed, and the less desirable to the south was excluded by artificial boundaries that became county lines.

     Alandroal County consists of very thin soil covering worthless rock.  Olive trees find little room to sink their roots, grain crops are sparse, and grazing land will not sustain more than small herds of sheep or goats.  To such an environment, industry is not attracted and public transportation is virtually non-existent.

     So those people with employable skills leave; those who stay are the very poor, the illiterate, the dependent.  They need a shepherd.  They need a friend.  And in Father John they have found both.

     His sermons are rather informal, quite personal.  He has no manuscript, no notes.  His words and manner are encouraging, optimistic.  He walks among the people as he speaks.  He establishes smiling eye contact.  He often calls someone by name or reaches out to touch.

     Father John does not limit his shepherding to Sundays.  During the week days he is among his people, actively being their friend.  He honks and waves as he drives by.  He sips coffee with them at sidewalk cafe tables.  He teaches handicrafts to create entrepreneurial self-employment.  He helps those with home-industries find markets for their crafts.  He visits the sick and the handicapped.  And he answers the phone or a knock at his door at all hours, whenever someone needs a friend.

     Father John is not a Rotarian.  There is no Rotary Club in his parish, not in all of Alandroal County.  But he was selected by District Rotary to be one of its GSE goodwill ambassadors to Alabama.  And back home he is a daily goodwill ambassador among his own people.

     Like a good Rotarian, Father John is a true friend.  In his parish, he is a true friend to his people, the poor.  He is a true friend to those who desperately need a friend.

     Father John, not a Rotarian, is a daily living example of living the Rotary motto, “Service Above Self.”