Father Hans Stapel

$100,000 award recipient

Essay by Sahr Brima,
St. Thomas junior

Editor’s note: Sahr Brima, a St. Thomas junior majoring in international studies and justice and peace studies, was a member of an Opus Prize Foundation team that visited finalist Father Hans Stapel, founder of Fazenda da Esperança in Guaratinguetá, Brazil, in May. Here are his reflections and photos from the trip.

My experience as an Opus Prize Foundation “due diligence” participant in Brazil can be summed up in one word: affirming.

I arrived in Guaratinguetá not quite knowing what to expect. The background material on Fazenda da Esperança (“Farms of Hope”) was impressive. The founders, Father Hans Stapel and Nelson Giovanelli, have established an organization that has rehabilitated more than 10,000 people with drug and alcohol addictions. There are more than 60 fazendas in Brazil and nine other countries: Argentina, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, the Philippines, Russia and Uruguay. The facilities include therapeutic communities, nursery schools, houses for single mothers and pregnant women, hospitals for HIV/AIDS patients, factories and homes for the homeless. Here is an organization that is transforming people’s lives, and in so doing, transforming the very society in which they live.

Men and women of varying ages whose lives are devastated by addiction voluntarily agree to live in a fazenda for one year. There they become a part of a community of recovering addicts who work, eat and pray together. In this atmosphere of accountability, sex, drugs and even smoking are prohibited. Successful rehabilitation is not based on medicine or psychology, but on a combination of three key principles: spirituality, work and community.

“It is not about theory,” Father Hans explained to me. “It is about putting the Gospel into practice.”

Indeed, spirituality proved to be the most important tenet for an overwhelming majority of the recovering addicts. At the heart of every testimony I heard was a conviction that God had saved individuals from their former way of life, and that He is transforming them through love.

Each day, the community meditates on a passage of scripture, and each individual applies it to his or her life. I was blessed to attend daily Mass at the fazenda and found it to be an uplifting occasion. Held in beautiful chapels that resonated with the soulful, harmonious songs of changed human beings, Mass was the most anticipated event of the day. Many either have discovered or re-discovered God in their daily experience of the Gospel.

The staff members at Fazenda da Esperança are not trained professionals. They are not licensed social workers or paid employees. They are parishioners, priests, sisters, former addicts and families of addicts. They are ordinary people passionate about living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. Understanding that “faith without works is dead,” they have decided to show their faith by voluntarily dedicating their lives to alleviating the suffering of others (James 2:17).

My time at the fazendas taught me that addiction is not limited to the poor. I met a man in his mid-40s who was a lawyer, real estate agent and owner of a popular children’s clothing line with shops all over Brazil. He began using drugs as a way to cope with stress. It quickly became a habit that he could no longer control. He spent more and more time chasing a high than working and spending time with his wife and baby daughter. As his marriage began to crumble under the weight of his addiction, he sought help from Fazenda da Esperança.

My experience in Brazil was affirming because it exposed me to the power of faith lived out and the indomitable nature of love. Through Fazenda da Esperança, Father Hans and Nelson are addressing the socioeconomic and spiritual needs of people in the world. I pray that God will use me in a similar capacity.

Sahr Brima