A Tarahumara woman weaves sheep's wool in Panalachi, Mexico, much the way her ancestors did for generations. Contemporaries of the Aztecs, the early Tarahumara fled to remote, high stretches of the Sierra Madres in north central Mexico to escape forced labor in Spanish silver mines. They were evangelized by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century until the Spanish king, Charles III, expelled Jesuits from New Spain in 1767.

JUST A FEW HUNDRED MILES south of El Paso, Texas, toils a Jesuit priest whose 59 years in the Society have been devoted to helping preserve Mexico's Tarahumara Indians, an indigenous people who live primarily in caves, whose diet is 95 percent corn, and whose subsistence culture and traditions have remained remarkably unchanged since the fifteenth century.

Fr. Verplancken, from Guadalajara, joined the Society in 1943, studied from 1947 to 1950 in El Paso, and continued studies in science, philosophy, Latin, and theology at the Valley of Toluca and in Mexico City.

When Fr. Verplancken, assigned to a parish in Creel in the state of Chihuahua, started ministering to the Tarahumara, he found a community with an infant mortality rate of more than 75 percent and suffering from malnutrition, tuberculosis, and gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.

In 1965 he started a small clinic-eighteen beds for children, five for adults-to serve Tarahumara communities. Even at this clinic, which lacked running water and electricity, demand far exceeded capacity, so Fr. Verplancken set out to secure the money to build a larger hospital with water and power.

	[Above] Fr. Verplancken celebrates Palm Sunday in Choquitas. The Tarahumara were on their own, religiously speaking, from the time Jesuits were expelled from the area in 1767 until the late 1800s. [Left] Tarahumara playing the role of the fariseos, pharisees, dance to drums during Semana Santa, Holy Week, in the village of Wawatzerare. Such ritual dances play an important role in this people's faith and culture.
	[Above] A Tarahumara elder wears a traditional koyera on his head; his shirt is called a napatza. Such traditional marks of Tarahumara culture are giving way to the culture of Mexico at large. [Left] A Tarahumara ritual dancer.

In 1979 Fr. Verplancken opened Clínica Santa Teresita in Creel, a 75-bed clinic with running water piped in from six miles away through a system he constructed. The hospital, complete with a pharmacy, lab, and operating room, offers adult, pediatrics, dental, maternity, nutrition, and X-ray services. Since 1981 the Daughters of Saint Vincent de Paul have been nurses, administrators, and service coordinators for the clinic's patients, who numbered more than 5,300 in 2001.

The clinic is the epicenter but not the sole provider of health care in the vast Sierra. Because of the great distances and difficult terrain and the fact that the Rarámuri, as the Tarahumara call themselves, neither drive nor ride horses, health care providers travel to the far-flung communities. The clinic also trains Rarámuri promotores, community health care workers who return to their villages educated in hygiene, nutrition, vaccination, prenatal care, and prevention and detection techniques.

The Clínica Santa Teresita is the best known of Fr. Verplancken's accomplishments, but others include bringing in and distributing close to 500 tons of corn, beans, and potatoes throughout the Sierra this past year, as well as rice, sugar, lard, oats, coffee, and fish. Also distributed were more than 2,000 blankets, as well as clothes and shoes, for freezing temperatures hit the high altitudes of the Sierra as early as mid October.

Fr. Verplancken has also organized the drilling of almost 50 wells to cut down on gastrointestinal diseases-the direct result of drinking contaminated water and the most prevalent illness among children in the hospital.

He has also built schools that teach Rarámuri as a written language, Spanish, hygiene, mathematics, husbandry, and other fundamentals. Fr. Verplancken knows that educated Rarámuri will be better able to avoid exploitation, particularly as the quest for their land and their wood intensifies and the desire for cheap labor prevails. They must know their rights and how to protect them, and education is the key.

The list of Fr. Verplancken's accomplishments does not stop here; during his time with the Tarahumara he has built a nursing home, brought electricity and water to Creel, and organized craftmaking, which has become a major means of support during years of drought in the Sierra Madres. The Tarahumara have always woven or sewn their own clothes, made and decorated clay pots for cooking and eating, carved violins and much more from wood. Fr. Verplancken started selling their wares to tourists at the mission store in 1970; now more than a dozen stores in Creel sell handmade Tarahumara crafts, and thousands of Tarahumara sell them directly to tourists.

Some Tarahumara live in caves, others inhabit houses made of stone, planks, and poles, built high in canyons of the Sierra Madres. It is a way of life that has changed little over centuries.

The Rarámuri are a proud people. The mission is intent on not creating a dependency, so although the clinic and all other services are free, the Rarámuri are asked to contribute. This may be through the donation of a handicraft to be sold in the mission store or participating in projects such as repairing the health care center, a road into the village, or the church.

Fr. Verplancken has found numerous paintings in the various Sierra missions, including a collection of twelve paintings, each five by seven feet, by artist Miguel Correa found in the Tarahumara village of Cusarare, after the steeple of the church collapsed and he set about restoring the building, built by fellow Jesuits in 1741. Fr. Verplancken persuaded the governor of Chihuahua to help pay for restoration and is raising funds to build a museum to display these and many other beautifully restored works of art found in the Jesuit missions of the Sierra.

Fr. Verplancken makes an impact on people's lives with his photography. His pictures are renowned not only in Chihuahua but also throughout Mexico. Countless articles, books, and travel guides on Copper Canyon, the Sierra, or the Tarahumara feature his photographs. He sells some of them to support the mission in the form of photos, postcards, framed prints, and slides taken with a Nikon and a Rolleiflex.

Most of this he accomplished while serving as parish priest for 25 years in Creel. During this time he also renovated the small church and then built a new one, as the town quadrupled in size once the road was paved from the city of Chihuahua, the beautiful Sierra Madre mountains became accessible, and the cave-dwelling Tarahumara and Copper Canyon were "discovered."

Mothers in these traditional clothes bring infants to be baptized in Wawatzerare. Tarahumara women wear a siputza, a full, layered skirt of cotton, brightly dyed. The gimira, a shawl, is handy for carrying children or objects. Little girls, tewekes, frequently dress just like their mothers, at times carrying a sibling in a gimira as well.

Guadalupe and her daughter pose in front of their stone home. Rainwater for drinking and for growing corn is a precious commodity in this drought-prone area of north central Mexico.

The new church also demonstrated perhaps the most remarkable thing about the man-his amazing ability to gain support for his endeavors. Perhaps his simple, straightforward ways, his tenacity and attention to detail, and selfless love for God and the people he serves are what inspires others. Whatever it may be-building the water system or building the church-he has always inspired others to give, to contribute to his vision.

And with God as the thread that keeps the cloth whole, the hardworking tailor is a Mexican-born Jesuit who at age 76 hasn't slowed down a bit. Perhaps many of the Tarahumara Mission's supporters are inspired by God to help others, but there is no doubt that many too are inspired by the man who, without fanfare or recognition, has chosen to dedicate his life to helping his Tarahumara brothers and sisters and has proven, as the mission's website (www. giveaminute.org) slogan says, "You can make a difference."

Sandy Brown, a volunteer at the Tarahumara Mission in Creel, Chihuahua, teaches, coordinates U.S. supporters, and gives tours of the hospital and talks on the mission to visitors. For twelve years previous she worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant to former Senate majority leader George Mitchell and as Amtrak's vice president of government affairs. Ms. Brown and Fr. Verplancken can be reached through the website www.giveaminute.org

Infant mortality among the Tarahumara had reached as high as 75 percent at the time when Fr. Verplancken began his ministry among them.