The life of Fr. Jim Kohmetscher, O.M.I., has come to an end, but his spirit will live on in the hearts of those he served in God’s name.

Fr. Jim first arrived in Brazil in October of 1962. He was sent in response to the call of Pope John XXIII for missionary communities to extend their focus to Latin America. After several years of ministry in a small coffee plantation community in Palmeiral, Minas Gerais, the young Nebraskan missionary was sent to open a mission in Recife in 1964.

Fr. Jim, along with fellow Oblates Darrell Rupiper and Peter Grams, founded the first Oblate community in an abandoned favela known as Brasilia Teimosa. When they first arrived, Brasilia Teimosa was a shanty town with no streets or sanitation, where the poorest of the poor had built simple homes made of any material they could find. At that time, the government was trying to force the people out of their humble shacks so that they could take over the land.

The people were desperate, but Fr. Jim and the Oblates had faith in the ingenuity and determination of their new community. The Oblates fostered strength and hope in the impoverished community as they helped the community build new homes and organize to resist the expulsion.

In 1980, Fr. Jim celebrated his 25th anniversary in the priesthood and the Oblates turned the flourishing community of Brasilia Teimosa over to the diocese. Fr. Jim continued to minister in the community for a while but in 1987, was named Novice Master and sent to the international novitiate in Paraguay. After several years of fostering faith and missionary spirit in young seminarians, Fr. Jim spent a year in Chicago before returning to Brazil to serve as Superior in 1994.

Fr. Jim was serving in the Formation house in Goiania on April 4, 2004, when God called Fr. Jim to be with Him forever. Fr. Wilmar Varjao, O.M.I., accompanied his former novice master’s body to Recife. Oblates, Fr. Tony Rendon and Fr. Bruce Heit, joined him as they returned Jim’s body to the parish he founded.

As the bells of the church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary chimed midnight, nearly 1000 people were applauding in Brasilia Teimosa. The crowds were gathered to receive the body of the man who will forever be engraved in their hearts. The tearful mourners said goodbye to their beloved missionary at the “Praca Padre Jaime” which had been named in his honor.

Seven days later, over forty Oblates and seminarians gathered with many others to celebrate his funeral Mass at the Church of the Holy Spirit where Fr. Jim had last been pastor. A simple funeral Mass pamphlet was distributed which featured a photo of Fr. Jim walking in the clouds with the words, “His example of life and simplicity will forever be engraved in our hearts.”