Thread by @freemanchari

1. This guy turned 9 today. As I struggle with the very notion of present-day Christianity, it is our experience that always reminds me that God is present & speaks to the least qualified. What I am going to share can be interpreted as miracles or coincidence. Choose your side!

2. After our 1st kid died at birth in 2009, we tried for another. We did all kinds of acrobatics to no avail. Every period was a struggle. Out of the blue, a Pastor Mangwiro sends an FB msg to my wife, "The Lord says, by this time next yr you will have a son, name him Ezekiel"🙄

3. My wife tells me, my response: "If I am to have a son, he will be Malcolm not Ezekiel" This was end of 2010. We then left for USA. 2011 was a very lean yr for us as we went thru immigration processes. We stayed with a good friend. Boom! She falls pregnant. Wrong timing!

4. We had little savings, not enough to sustain pregnancy. A few wks later a lady we prayed with but had never met - Ashanti, calls us. "The Lord says, the son you're carrying is mine & I will take care of all his needs. So stop worrying. You'll have a girl just after this one"😳

5. Mai Mandikate - one of our motherly friends we met in USA shares with my wife that one of her elderly clients - Betty , had just lost her husband. Jo, writes a card to the lady. A few months later Betty invites us to her home for a sleep over.

6. Everyone around us was against this, the same applies on Betty's side. A black, immigrant & broke couple sleeping over at a 70 yr old white lady's place. What could go wrong? We decided not to go, when we told her she cried. Eventually, Joyce convinced us to go.

7. We had a good time. We cooked & watched "Driving Miss Daisy". To our shock Betty had bought all the baby clothes for the whole year. The Zim community had a baby shower & we had all the diapers that we needed for 2 yrs. It was gonna cost us $9000 for her hospital bills.

8. Mercy Health sent us a letter that they would cover 100% the costs of hospital visits & delivery. On 11 December 2011, a boy was born && by that time I had warmed up to the name "Ezekiel" 🙈.

9. If this was a film (which I am writing), this is where you would see some text.
- Janelle was born 17 months after Ezekiel & Joanne exactly 2 yrs after Janelle
- Betty is in her 80s & remains close to the kids
- Joyce is still our Zim mother in USA