Saturday, December 6, 2008

Letter from Cosam

This week, we received an e-mail from our Zambian friend, Cosam.

I can't tell you what a privilege it was getting to know this guy. He's one of those guys that tries to act macho, but is really a tender-hearted softie.


While we were in Zambia, the students were preparing to go home for winter break. On the last day of finals, I asked Cosam if he was packed and ready to go. He said, "Oh! I have been packed for 4 days!" He was SO READY to go home and see his family. However, later that night, after about half of the students had left for home, Cosam was still hanging around. Chris and I both asked him why he hadn't left yet, but could never really get a straight answer out of him. One of the other students finally told us, "He's staying to hang out with you two." I teared up a little.


The next morning, only about 4 or 5 of the students were left. They popped in on us at our guesthouse while we were eating breakfast. Cosam was there, all smiles, to say good-bye to us. While he was hugging Chris good-bye, he said, "I'll see you in heaven. Let me know when you finally have kids" (he was quite concerned that we didn't have children). Then he just laughed and walked out. He was always laughing, which always made us laugh.


His e-mail didn't say much. Just hello and that he was thinking about us, but WOW it sure tugged on my heart. At the end of the e-mail, he put Deut. 28:2-4. I thought, what in the world does that mean? So, I looked it up.

"And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, and the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks."

Ahhh, I miss Cosam so much.

2 comments:

Elana Kahn said...

I think that was sooo sweet of him! And such a beautiful Biblical passage to send too!

Tracy said...

Nothing great was every achieved w/o enthusiam. He definitely has lot of laughter. You 3 made a lasting impression on each other.