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It makes sense when he tells it.

Patrick Power builds coffins for people in Kansas City to help AIDs orphans in Thailand.

Power, 84, gets a good laugh while describing how one of his coffin "customers" in Kansas City uses his box as a wine cabinet.

"It'll hold 48 bottles of wine. He's got it in his living room," says Power, a priest of the Redemptorist Order and a visitor for about three months every winter at the Redemptorist Renewal Center at Picture Rocks. He spends the rest of the year in Kansas City, in semi-retirement, doing woodwork and serving as a relief priest.

Power says he asks the people in Kansas City who commission coffins and urns to "make a generous donation" to the Redemptorists' missions throughout the world.

In Thailand, where Power served as a missionary more than 50 year ago, he knows a priest who cares for 120 AIDs orphans, ages 2 through 15. And that's just one of the Redemptorists' three missions in Thailand.

It's a kindness, as well as making financial sense. Power says that a basic coffin in Kansas City costs about $2,300, and "I can make one out of pine for $100."

He doesn't sell them for that, of course. He doesn't sell them at all.

It's a "donation" to Redemptorist causes, a "generous donation" that varies according to the donor's ability.

And some of them get more out of it than a coffin. Power says some customers get a lot of pleasure out of showing people their coffins.

Besides the man who uses his as a wine cabinet, Power says there's a woman who uses hers for a bookcase.

Power, who has an Irish-sounding accent, was born and grew up in Newfoundland. The Irish influence comes from his ancestors, who came over long ago but kept a bit of their culture.

He grew up with woodworking, coming home from school, dropping his books and going out to help his father build boats.

"Of seven brothers, only two had woodworking ability. Some people say you can teach it, but if it comes naturally, you're home free."

During World War II, Power gave up woodworking for a bit and worked as a mechanic for the U.S. Navy, which was using Newfoundland as a strategic base as German submarines roamed the Atlantic shipping lanes.

Later, as a Redemptorist brother, he was sent to Thailand to build a riverboat for Redemptorist missionaries, who were sent there by the Catholic Church after the war.

In those days, he says, Thailand was undeveloped, with virtually no roads.

"In the 1950s," Power recalls, "there was no electricity, no running water.

"I built a 36-foot boat of teak, grown and milled there."

The Redemptorists stayed on, expanding their missionary work for the poor.

Power returned for a visit. "When I went back in '94 they had paved roads, the result of the Vietnam War."

They also had AIDs, and Power had a cause for his retirement years.

While in Tucson at the Redemptorist Renewal Center each winter, Power doesn't take a break from woodworking. He makes furniture for the center's buildings, beautiful pieces with intricate, colorful inlaid details.

Power is working on a small altar. He's already finished an inlaid oak meeting table and a huge podium, made of Honduran mahogany, striped light and dark African zebra wood and tropical walnut from Brazil and accented with bright red paduc from Africa, all glued together. "Not a screw or nail in it," he says.

Dozens of his pieces decorate the sprawling retreat's rooms. They're identifiable by the precise workmanship and intricate inlaid designs favored by the center's director, the Rev. Thomas M. Santa, a big fan of Power's work.

"It came easy," Power says of his woodworking. "It was just in the blood, but I love doing it. Especially when my rewards go to those poor little kids."

Northwest