My Friend Mary

Many of you who have visited Zambia have gotten to meet Mary Zulu. She is the wife of Pastor Zulu who does so much for our Village. They live in Liteta, a short distance away. Mary is one of my good Zambian friends. She is the chairperson of the Chimwemwe Ladies Club Executive Committee. She has been invaluable in that capacity, and feels very called to those women.

Mary and Kimberly have been doing outreach at Okada Community School, teaching Bible once a week. They have been doing this for several years.

But there are two new things I want to tell you about. Mary loves to read and as a young girl helped in her school library and was even put in charge of it. So this year, I asked if she would come to our school once or twice a week to be our school librarian. I didn’t even have to ask a second time. She is keeping the books organized. Once a week the Grades 3-8 come to the library to check out books. Mary picks out books and helps the classroom teachers in grades 1-2 with their classroom libraries. Yesterday she began what I hope will be a weekly story time. She went to the Grade 1 and then Grade 2 classes and read a story. It was a joy yesterday to see one class sitting under the big tree in our courtyard and a big smile on Mary’s face as she read to them using one of the big books that have been sent on a container!

She is a blessing to us!

Ever since Mary was a little girl she has wanted to ride a horse. Even now she loves reading Benedict’s Louis L’amour western stories. Mary has shared that she had prayed what she thought was an impossible prayer – that one day she would be able to ride a horse. So when Sena started riding and got a horse, Mary was excited and asked Sena right away if she would be able to ride. As you can see from the picture, Mary was so thrilled. What a God we serve who even gives gifts like horseback riding to his children!