Last Sunday I was in luck!! I came back from church to find that my home had electricity. I was so excited that I very quickly got busy cooking on my electric stove. I managed to cook a whole Sunday meal.
Shortly after finishing my cooking, I noticed my neighbour, walking wearily past my house with her daughter. She is a single mother who rents one of my cottages at the back of my residence. She is very reserved and rarely speaks to me apart from the occasional polite greeting.
It was at that point that I noticed that there was no electricity, which would mean that she would have to look for charcoal to cook for herself and her daughter. I decided to love in the moment, and I dished out two bowls of food and delivered them to her house. She was very grateful.
Later that evening, My neighbour knocked on my door to further express her gratitude for the meal. She explained that she had not eaten the whole day due to a lengthy service at her Pentecostal church. When she got home and there was no electricity to cook, her daughter cried because she was so hungry.
I invited her into my house, and since then, she and I have developed a good relationship and friendship. She now stops by my house every day to have a cup of tea and chat. We share our experiences and enjoy each other’s company. Although I have my niece staying with me, Mary, who is a nurse, makes it her personal responsibility to check my blood pressure and regularly check in on me.
A few days ago, I was quite ill with vertigo, and there was absolutely no way I could get up to cook, and to make matters worse, there was no electricity. As I tried to sum up the energy to get my niece to cook on the charcoal stove, I heard a knock at my front gate. It was a young man who works for my good friend Miriam. Despite being wheelchair bound, Miriam had cooked a meal for me, which the young man delivered. My very own Deliveroo!! 🤣 Miriam is an excellent cook and she had prepared my favourite rice dish. It was although a good deed had been returned.
Recently when talking to my daughter, Anne, who I believe now works for the Centre for Unity, she told me of her experience witnessing the signing of the “Covenant of faiths in Hertfordshire” at the Centre for Unity. I couldn’t help but think that if we simply choose to love in the moment, we can live our own covenants of faith daily. Here we are in Ndola. Three women, I am of the Roman Catholic faith, M. belongs to a Pentecostal church, and my friend Miriam is a Muslim. Different faiths all living together as one in unity and brought together by the most frustrating and challenging circumstances of having no electricity.
A.B.
