When a daughter is born to an African family, there is great joy and rejoicing. The rejoicing is even greater when a son is born. The son will ensure the continuity of the family line. He also is the social security for the parents in their old age.

Bishop Emeritus Joram and his wife Ludia Mbeba were blessed with three sons: Charles, Moses and Naftali, as well as two daughters: Joy and Imani. Additional blessings followed when the children proved academically gifted. They qualified in professional fields and landed good jobs so that they served their communities and country.

They married well and started families. Very soon the Mbebas were grandparents. Grandchildren are known to give immeasurable happiness to grandparents. The grandparents can enjoy the children without being totally responsible for their well-being. Life was set to be good and fruitful. An African saying which would suitably describe life in the Mbeba household was that all was well and could there possibly be anything bitter that they ate other than the salt they used as a flavour? Joram and Ludia Mbeba looked forward to an enjoyable existence as parents and grandparents.

Tragedy struck like a thief in the night.

Charles was a mechanical engineer with special gifts in working with heavy machines and automobiles. He was a lecturer at the Institute of Transport Technical College in Dar es Salaam. He and his German-born wife Rita had two children: Tumaini, which means hope, and Jenny.

In October 1995 there was a nation-wide doctors’ strike. The Mbebas were on a one-year sabbatical and were at the time studying at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Their peace was shattered by a telephone message from home. “Charles seriously sick. Come home at once.” While they were still packing and preparing to go home another message came. Charles had died. The cause was meningitis. The family had tried all they could but the doctors were on strike. No one could attend to him. Ironically his brother Moses was a medical doctor. He too was away from home. He was on an assignment in Zimbabwe. This was a deep and terrible blow.

In Africa there is a saying which translated implies that a doctor is not always able to treat his own ailments. Moses was a medical doctor. At the time of his death he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dar es Salaam. He was ill for about a year. He had a lung cancer. He left behind a wife, Queen and two daughters: Rita and Lisa. It was in November 1997.

Naftali was also a mechanical engineer. He could handle anything from automobiles to lifts in buildings. He and his Canadian wife had one son, Dennis. Naftali had a stroke, which affected his brain. The brain just deteriorated right up to the end. Bishop Joram Mbeba was already in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in July 1998. He was called home and so did not attend the Executive Committee meeting of Mennonite World Conference, of which he is a member.

When he arrived home he hired a small plane to carry his son from Dar es Salaam to his home in Shirati. The doctors had explained everything to the family. They knew what was to come. Naftali left them in October 1998.

An African deacon in describing loss through death once said, “Until you have lost a spouse or child to death you have not yet started experiencing what life is all about.” For the Mbebas the experience has been a living reality over and over. The sharing of this story is not just so that we can know of the loss but so that it can be of encouragement to others that may yet live through such experiences. The Bishop and his wife were able to attend the MWC Executive Committee meeting in Indonesia in August 1999. They are a testimony of thanksgiving for the ministering and healing power of God where death has brought unmeasurable pain. The Mbebas are still hurting, but they are moving forward in the peace of knowing God’s love.

The Bishop says life has much in store for us and some of it is beyond human understanding, but the joy of it is that everything is in the hands of God. Their trust in God has sustained them as a family, because even death is in the hands of God. They have been strengthened by coming again and again to the feet of the cross. They appreciate the support they have had from the brothers and sisters who sent letters and cards, as well as those who visited them to comfort them through the Word of God. Above all, the Bishop says social security should be in the Lord.