Altar Call -- Opelika-Auburn News
Walter Albritton
November 25, 2012
Reflections on the recent journey to Zambia
It was
our good fortune to have our friends Jill Davis and her son Daniel to join us
on our recent trip back to Zambia. They knew the drill since they had been with
us on our earlier journey six years ago.
Jill is
an excellent writer so I asked her to share some of her personal reflections on
our African adventure. You will enjoy her unique observations and inner
feelings. So, here is Jill:
Something made me ask Walter if this was really his last trip to Africa.
Something deep inside in that place of inner knowing where God talks to you and
you sometimes don’t believe what you hear. And with a sheepish grin he
answered, “the last trip this year.” This
is what I was thinking about in the Zambian store where Muumbe and I were
searching for an 80th birthday card for Walter and Dean. It didn’t look as if
we were going to find one, just as it seemed as though we were going to have to
creatively alter a card, Muumbe kept moving around the store and there it stood,
‘Happy 80th Birthday,’ and next to it ‘Happy 85th
Birthday’ and next to that ‘Happy 90th Birthday.’ “Hum,’ I mused,
“Should we get these next two cards
and be ready? We can go ahead and sign them in case we are not here when Dean
and Walter’s 85th and 90th birthday came around?”
We both contemplated and Muumbe said, “We will
just have to come back here when the time comes.”
Our next task was to get a cake from
a lady in the village. In Zambia, there are villages with all natural
structures like huts, and there are villages that are full of cinderblock
ranch-style houses. But getting to all villages requires navigating a rocky,
dusty, boulder- filled terrain with phenomenally few marked street signs or
recognizable paths.
We arrived at Joanna’s house and
found she had made a majestic two layer cake with Dean and Walter’s picture on
the front. Yes, there is a lady in a village who can make cakes like Cake Boss,
and one mile away from her, people are still carrying water on their heads from
watering holes, or if they are lucky, a nearby well. All of Zambia contains
this contrast in development.
With Muumbe at the wheel, and the
cake in my lap, we bumbled and bounced in an old jeep to the marriage seminar
that Dean and Walter were teaching. I thought about the beautiful new bride
that we had met just yesterday, Sandra, who is Alfred’s administrative
assistant. Oh how radiant she was when she met Walter and Dean. Sandra had just
married and after a two week honeymoon had returned to work. She was so incredibly excited to meet a couple
married for 60 years.
As we entered the conference, Alfred
stood before us and said that he had sad news, he had just heard that Sandra’s
husband had been killed in a car accident. We were gripped with sadness; Dean
could not give the funny talk she had planned. God spoke through her heart at
that moment about how she had grown as a Christian from a childlike faith who
thought Jesus was nice and she was nice, to an 80 year old woman who knew that
faith in Jesus gave her power to love through the darkest times. Walter spoke
to the group about the importance of equality in marriage and supporting each
other's ministry.
At the end of their talk, Alfred told Walter
and Dean that the group would need to go outside for a picture. In the mean time he spoke to the group in
Tonga, (one of Zambia’s 43 living languages) telling them to go outside and
prepare for the surprise entrance behind the birthday cake. Thirty men and
women stepped in rhythm, singing Happy Birthday as we entered the room.
For the next part of our journey, we
went to express our condolences to Sandra.
We came to Sandra’s Aunt’s house who had raised her. Toddlers were playing in the yard as Muumbe
entered the house first, and the sound of Sandra wailing met me on the porch, I hesitated to go in because of this thought I had
about her needing space. But Alfred motioned to me to enter.
Sandra
was sitting on a mattress on the dining room floor, bowls of fruit sat on a
tray beside her. Alfred sat on a small bench and held out his hand for her, and
she was too distraught to reach out, so he picked up her hand off the mattress,
her arm a limp noodle. He said, "As humans, we know the present and the
past, but only God knows the future." Bearing witness to this was a
transformative experience for me.
It was a day that brought gifts that
no other day could have: a day of joy celebrating the longevity of life and
marriage and a day of deep sorrow, for a union cut painfully short, a day where
no other words but “Only God knows the future” can give us hope. + + +