Sister of devotion Tributes have rolled in since the death of Sister Juliana Devoy last month. Macao has said goodbye to a missionary who ‘led a life of fighting for others’ – principally, fellow women. Text Leonor Machado Photos Cheong Kam Ka
A
kind person but most importantly a fighter.” This is how Macao legislator, writer and scholar Agnes Lam describes Macao Sister Mary Juliana Suzanne Devoy, who died aged 83 last month and who will be missed by many in the city. Better known as Juliana Devoy, she was a devoted woman who dedicated her life to helping others. The missionary was known for her incredible work in the realm of women’s rights in Macao, as well as for her aid work for victims of domestic violence. For around 30 years, she headed the Good Shepherd Centre in the city, a Catholic refuge that’s dedicated to the welfare of women and girls, ‘especially those marginalised by society’. Devoy was born in the US state of Nebraska on 7 February 1937.
The second of seven siblings, she graduated as a missionary novitiate of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Los Angeles in 1954 and made her final vows in Angers, France, in 1960. Serving in China was always one of her dreams and she did exactly that, arriving in Hong Kong in 1963 before moving to Macao in 1988. By that time she’d already worked with teenage girls in a residential home in Hong Kong and performed missionary work across Asia. She founded the Good Shepherd Crisis Centre in Macao in 1990 and was its director for many years, as well as its executive co-ordinator for 22 years, right up to her last days. Although Devoy died on 14 December, her memory will live on in Macao. She was cherished by
many, especially the women she aided over the years – including all those she stayed in touch with and visited regularly. The new director of the Good Shepherd, Debbie Lai, vows to continue Devoy’s ‘work and plans’, ensuring her outstanding legacy of social service to the Macao community won’t be forgotten. ‘Creative’ and ‘a visionary’ are words Lai uses to describe the much-loved sister.
A great partnership Lai says she’d seen Devoy’s church services in Macao before but it wasn’t until they met in the street in 1990 that their relationship started to bear fruit. They became friends and worked together for more than 30 years
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