The lives of two Nyadire friends celebrated and mourned
The deaths of Lovemore Mutasa and Sister Rut Lindgren are truly losses to The United Methodist Mission at Nyadire. They were models of friendship, Christian spirit, and community leadership. The Nyadire Connection (TNC) shares the sadness and celebrates their lives. Many TNC members had the pleasure of knowing,working with, and loving them.
Lovemore Mutasa lived his name. One does not forget his broad, engaging smile and his welcoming demeanor. He loved his family, his community, his work, and his country. Along with the responsibilities as first a teacher, then acting headmaster, and finally the deputy headmaster of the Nyadire Primary School, he still found time to be part of the Nyadire Water Committee that saw the project through some difficult challenges. He always worked with the TNC Mission Teams to make Vacation Bible School possible. When times were desperate in Zimbabwe, he went to South Africa and became a driver in order to support his family. He and his wife, Violet, a teacher also at the Primary School, were parents to two daughters and were raising a niece of Violet’s deceased sister. He suffered from diabetes and hypertension.
Sister Rut Lindgren passed away Monday, December 18, 2011.
Sister Rut is being mourned all around the world by those who knew her. The United Methodist Mission in Nyadire Zimbabwe is particularly saddened as it was her home and the base of her ministry to children during the last 47 years. At the time of her death she was caring for seven orphans and one adopted son, Kuda.
The future of the children who were left was of great concern to Sister Rut as it to members of TNC who knew and loved this devoted icon. She did not own the home on the mission in which she lived and did not have the funds to secure their future.
A book that gives the details of her life reveals that Sister Rut was herself an orphan and spent most of her first twenty years in an orphanage in Finland. At age seventeen, she had a vision while praying during a Methodist Church service. She saw the letter “S” and people in a tropical setting saying, “Come help us.” At that time she was taking her nursing training and had a boyfriend. After finishing her schooling, her boyfriend was killed in an auto accident, and at age 29 Sister Rut traveled to Sumatra. She fled to Southern Rhodesia after the government closed the borders.
Nyadire became her home where she began an outreach program for hospital clinics. Sister Rut was known to travel to the “bush” where mothers walked with their babies on their backs from their villages to gather for her well baby clinics held under a designated tree on a certain day. She founded the Home of Hope (HOH) Orphanage that today houses 25 children and who are cared for by an able administrator and his staff. She said she modeled the Home of Hope after the one she lived in, caring for a limited number of children and being more like a family.
During her nursing mission, she managed to foster over 120 children in her home. Malaria, intestinal worms, malnutrition, and inadequate medicines were but a few of the obstacles. Some of the babies were so tiny she could hold them in the palm of her hand. She would have 6-8 children in her charge at times, feeding them porridge and milk. She came to be called “GoGo” (Grandmother), “I love you best” by the orphans.
Her first adopted child, daughter, Jose, is now married, has children of her own and lives in Scotland. Kuda, who Sister Rut adopted when she was 59, and who was living with her at the time of her death, hopes to go to university to become a doctor. Sister Rut worried that he would not be able to fulfill his dream even though he is an exceptional student. The seven young girls living with her tried with their small hands to stop the ambulance from taking their “GoGo.” Most of them are now orphans three times over.
TNC is concerned about care and the future of the children left behind and is seeking monetary donations to help Kuda and the seven girls, plus a boy, Tawanda, age 5, Sister Rut took in just last year. All must leave the home they shared with Sister Rut.
Please help in any way you can by sending donations marked “Sister Rut” to Christ United Methodist Church, 44 Highland Road, Bethel Park, Pa. 15102.
“Tatenda” (Thank you in Shona)
