Very soon after his arrival in Taizé, Brother Roger discerned his skills and entrusted many important task to him, particularly in running the material side of the community’s life, and in the editing of books and journals published by Les Presses de Taizé.
At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, Brother Roger asked him to go periodically to the United States to support the brothers who at the time were living there. He spent several months with them in a poor neighbourhood called Hell’s Kitchen, and in Milwaukee in an African-American neigbourhood. He travelled with other brothers throughout the Midwest and Texas to help young adults prepare to come to the North American meeting that Taizé organised in Dayton, Ohio, in 1992.
He then returned to Taizé and continued with different administrative tasks, including following up the visa questions for young people, who came from distant lands, so that they could take part in the international meetings in Taizé.
When war broke out in the early 1990s in former Yugoslavia, he went to Croatia where there were many refugees. He prepared the stay in Taizé of several groups of children from Bosnia who were in need of respite. He also helped a family from Sarajevo to settle in the village of Taizé. They are still living there today.
Highly educated, this kind and humble man loved all that was beautiful. He was passionate about books and he always had good suggestions on what to read for brothers or others he met.
Throughout his life, he accompanied spiritually a number of people, many of whom expressed today agreement on the quality of his listening, his sensitivity, his respect and his serenity.