During my first visit to the beautiful African country known as Zambia, my host Alfred Kalembo introduced me to his sister Catherine. Since her understanding of languages was limited to her native tongue, Tonga, we communicated mostly with smiles. Her brother and his wife, Muumbe, served as our translators.
Catherine and her beautiful young daughter, Linda, lived with Alfred and Muumbe, as well as a couple of orphaned children who had been welcomed into the Kalembo home. Alfred told me Zambia’s population of 11 million included one million orphans under age 15, the result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Many of the orphans lived on the streets in urban areas.
One day Alfred took us to a vacant lot nearby and while standing on the lot, he said, “We want to build Catherine a home on this lot.” I thought, “That’s a nice idea.” My wife looked at me and said, “We need to build Catherine a home here.” We returned home and I forgot about building a home for Catherine. Dean did not forget. Soon she had persuaded her friends in the Frazer Sunday School Class to build a home for her friend Catherine.
The next year, some 16 months later, we stood in that home and visited with Catherine and the two orphans she had welcomed into her home. She was sleeping on a mat on the floor; we bought her a bed. She had water but no hot water; we bought her a hot water heater. The loving bond between Catherine and Dean grew stronger as the years passed. Dean was always excited when a letter arrived from Catherine, a letter dictated by Catherine and translated into English by Muumbe.
Dean wanted Catherine to come to Alabama but it could not be arranged until almost three years after Dean’s death. Seventeen years after the two women met, last Saturday night Catherine finally slept in our home, along with Alfred and Muumbe. Dean would have been so happy; and I am believing she was! Karen, our son Tim’s wife, had redecorated a small bedroom; she even repainted the wall to make it special for Catherine.
Sunday morning, with Muumbe translating her Tonga words into English, Catherine spoke for 20 minutes to the members of the Frazer Class, thanking them for her home and for supporting her gardening work, a ministry for the poor, for the past 17 years. She shared her gratitude for those who helped her daughter Linda finish school and become recently a college graduate. She shared her faith in Jesus and her love for Dean. I wiped away my own tears as I viewed the moist eyes of many class member friends.
Later my son Tim said to me, “Dad, I would not take anything for the joy of hearing Catherine speak about the way she loved my mother. God brought her all the way from Africa to do that.”
Smiling, and hoping he would not notice the moisture in my eyes, I replied, “It touched me deeply too, son.” Silently, I began thanking Jesus, once again, for the ways He keeps on blessing me. This time He sent a woman from Zambia to bless me and many others – and she did! Glory! + + +