DILI: 17 July 2010 -- Fr Joao de Deus sdb arrived in East Timor
on 4 January 1958. After more than 50 years of persistent,
faithful
missionary work he can claim to have baptised a good 80,000 people,
witnessed thousands of marriages, and consistently spread the word of
God. In difficult days in the past he was taken both by Fretilin and by
the Indonesian army, but he remained solidly with the poor.ain, during
those difficult days, the then guerilla leader, now national hero
Xanana Gusmao gave him the code name 'Liras', ([eagles] wings).
Fr Joao recently gave an interview to the Portuguese
Salesian
Bulletin, agreeing to do so and to speak of his life if it would
benefit the Salesian Family and especially the young.
Born in Morais, Macedo de Cavaleiros on 15 april
1928, a poor town
in Portugal, it wasn't until he entered the diocesan seminary that he
first heard of Don Bosco, and of the fact that two Portuguese Salesians
were about to depart for Timor (Fr Preto and Bro Ribeiro). He entered
the Salesian novitiate and his novice master was Fr Nacher, who also
later went to Timor.
Fr Joao claims that his missionary vocation was not
his intention!
He accepted the request to go to Timor under religious obedience, or
better, 'in the spirit of religious obedience' as he puts it.
Reflecting on life and times in Timor, Fr Joao
admits that as poor
and tough as times were, people were without pretensions and looked to
their ancestral culture for certainty. Then came western influence
which brought many changes. The people he ministered too, while not at
the time necessarily Christian, were monotheistic and practical. If
anything they 'thingified' God, called Him 'Lulik', the sacred one.
Salesians in those early days were in Dili and at
Fuiloro. Then in
1971/2 came the presence in Baucau, where Fr Joao was sent and in whose
general region he remains until today. Then there were just two
churches. Today there are sixteen.
1975 was a tough year for our missionary. He was
taken first by the
Fretilin, spending much of the time on foot as they moved to avoid
discovery. He spent Christmas that year as a prisoner of a war raging
around him. Then he was captured by the Indonesians and held for some
days.
When asked by the interviewer if he 'collaborated'
with the
guerillas, Fr Joao put it this way: "It was all part of a triangle:
guerillas-the poor-the Church. The Church was the spokesman, the
guerillas were armed, and the poor were the body who supported the
guerillas". He never met Xanana directly during those times, but
passed on messages as requested in order to help. Instead he had known
Xanana's parents who were teachers at Baucau. "Excellent people". Only
later, after east Timor's independence, did he meet Xanana face to
face, where the latter told him that "he was my right arm".
At the conclusion of his interview, which was done
in Portugal, the
interviewer asked Fr Joao as he was about to return to East Timor, what
his dream for the future was. The response? "The same as I have had up
till now. To live amongst the poor and for them". _________________ AustraLasia is an
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