Chapter 27
Charmaine was at a loss for words. She shifted her gaze from Pastor Gillespie’s eyes to the half filled glass of water she was holding. She tapped the glass lightly with her index finger. Her calm spirit attracted Pastor Gillespie even more. He reached his right hand across the table and rested it lightly on hers. Charmaine smiled but kept her focus on the glass. If his touch stirred anything inside her, she did not reveal it. Pastor Gillespie was about to tell her to think about it when her eyes met his.
“I…I don’t know what to say. I feel honored. I…”
“How about saying, yes,” Pastor Gillespie said. He felt her studying him as she kept her eyes focused on his. It was as though she was peering into his soul. He saw innocence and sincerity in her eyes.
“Yes, Roland, I’ll marry you,” she finally said.
“Thank you, Charmaine. Thank you so much for accepting my proposal.”
Charmaine nodded her head slowly. Pastor Gillespie felt honored by her humility.
“I’m not sure what the custom is in your country,” he said sliding his hand away from hers. “I will ask your uncle’s permission, of course. Forgive me if I have jumped ahead of myself.”
“That’s fine,” Charmaine said with a smile. “We’ll do it the American way first; then we will do it the Ethiopian way. My uncle won’t be mad.”
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“We’re all set to go,” Sentayhu said as he and Bohlale walked from the back kitchen into the dining area where Pastor Gillespie and Charmaine were seated. “Pastor Gillespie, I want to thank you for everything you did to make the Ethiopian Celebration Sunday go so well,” Sentayhu said extending a hand to Pastor Gillespie. Bohlale did likewise. He thought he had seen Pastor Gillespie slide his hand away from Charmaine’s as they entered the room. Looks like they’re getting pretty close to each other, he thought.
“You are more than welcome,” Pastor Gillespie said. “And I thank you for everything. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. We have everything recorded on DVD and they will be on sale in the church bookstore and on our website soon. Just let Sister Mona know how many copies you want and she will get them delivered to you. Stop by the office as soon as you can Sentayhu, you too, Bohlale. I have some things I would like to discuss with you. Good night, my brothers and my sister.”
“Good night, Pastor Gillespie.”
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“A blessed man,” Sentayhu said of Pastor Gillespie as they rode home.
Charmaine was deep in her own thoughts. It would be an honor to be his wife. Everyone seemed to have received my people well today because of his eagerness to include us as part of the church family.
“Charmaine, is all well with you?” her uncle asked her as he pulled into the driveway at his house. “Do you have something you wish to share with me?”
Charmaine smiled. Her uncle seemed to always know when she had something on her mind. She hesitated to share the good news with him—not that she was trying to hide it from him; she just wanted Pastor Gillespie to mention it to her uncle first.
“I was thinking of waiting, but I’ll go ahead and let you know. Pastor Gillespie asked me to marry him,” Charmaine said. “I…said yes.”
Sentayhu pulled the keys out of the ignition and thought a moment before speaking. His silence lasted so long that Charmaine began to wonder if she had accepted Pastor Gillespie’s proposal too quickly. Finally, he said, “Congratulations, my daughter.” He leaned over and gave Charmaine a hug. “I’ll let you go ahead on to bed since it is so late and I know you are tired. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“One more thing,” Charmaine said. “Don’t think he’s being disrespectful for not asking you first; he is going to ask. I just wanted to let you know.”
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Pastor Gillespie stopped by the restaurant on Monday afternoon after working out at the gym.
“Brother Sentayhu, I’m still rejoicing over the blessings of yesterday,” Pastor Gillespie said.
“Oh, yes, Pastor. It was truly a blessed day,” Sentayhu said wondering when Pastor Gillespie would tell him he had asked his niece to marry him.
“I was going to wait until you stopped by the office, but I felt inclined to come by and share a few things with you,” Pastor Gillespie said.
After the men settled down in one of the booths, Pastor Gillespie said to him, “I don’t know if Charmaine said anything to you, but Brother Sentayhu, I’d like to ask for your permission to marry your niece.”
“Pastor Gillespie, you have my permission and my blessings, but the decision is entirely hers,” Sentayhu said. “I only ask that you treat her well and with respect, which I am sure you will do.”
“Thank you, Brother Sentayhu. Don’t worry, I will treat her well and with the utmost respect. She carries herself in a way that demands it,” Pastor Gillespie assured him. “Another thing I wanted to discuss with you was this: would you and possibly Bohlale be interested in going to seminary. I want to ordain you as pastor to your people so there won’t be any questions asked. You have the makings of a pastor. The church will take care of all expenses. You can commute back and forth so you can still oversee the restaurant.”
Sentayhu chuckled. “You know, Pastor, I’ve been having a desire to go to seminary for pastoral training if we could not find a church to worship in so I could add more depth to the little Bible knowledge that I have. We were going to just have services on the compound, but you came along.”
“I want you to still go and get the training because I want you to be their official pastor. In fact, I believe it would be better if you were their pastor; coming from the same country you would better understand some of their concerns. As of right now, you and your people will be leading the services every fourth Sunday. Perhaps we can add a small Amharic language service for those of you who do not speak English.”
“That sounds great to me,” Sentayhu said. “I will definitely pray about these matters and discuss them with my people.”
“And another thing,” Pastor Gillespie went on. “I’d like to hold an official meeting with your people one day this week to let them know in person that I did not authorize the writing of those disturbing letters you received, and to let them know that I will find out who is behind it and deal with them accordingly. If I hated you Ethiopians, I would not be here talking with you, I would not send my people to do business with you, and I definitely would not have asked Charmaine to marry me. ”
“You have a point there,” Sentayhu said. “Just the Ethiopian Celebration Sunday on yesterday is proof enough that you did not write those letters. When you announce your engagement, that will set their minds at ease even more.”
“Yes, as soon as we decide on a date to announce the engagement, we will let everyone know,” Pastor Gillespie said. “Now, tell me about this immigration matter. One of the letters said that some people in your community are here illegally. I don’t believe that is the case, because the whole letter is fabricated, but if there is any way I can help you in that area, please let me know.”
“I can assure you, Pastor, that there is no truth to that. We are all here legally. In fact, every person who wants to live in this community must show me or one of the other community leaders their immigration papers. If someone comes into the country who does not have his legal papers up front, we help them get their paperwork together,” Sentayhu said. “Each person in our community is an honest, hardworking individual. I can testify to that personally.”
“So whoever wrote that in the letter is lying and is just trying to cause problems with the government?” Pastor Gillespie asked.
“Right,” Sentayhu said. “I hope that these foolish pranks do not get out of hand or discourage you and your people.”
Chapter 28
After Brother Martin left the meeting he returned to his office and immediately got on the phone with his wife.
“How’s it coming along, Zelda?”
“Great! I’ll be hitting the send button in about forty minutes,” she said. “I deduced from the phone call that something came up.”
“Yeah. Those Ethiopians had a meeting with Pastor Gillespie and they showed him the letter. They still do not know who wrote it though. That one that’s in charge of them, Santa-something, even with me sitting in there, had the audacity to tell the pastor he gave me lots of ideas for the ministry but I have not used any of them. Can you believe that?” Brother Martin said to his wife.
“They’re trying hard to assimilate,” his wife said. “Trying to hide from immigration, I guess.”
“With those bright colors they wear every Sunday they are doing a poor job of hiding. Anyone can spot them a mile away,” Brother Martin said. “They look like parrots with all those bright colors.”
His wife chuckled. “I created two e-books. For the one going to Pastor Gillespie, I just copied facts from Wikipedia, you know to throw him off so that he will think this is something good. The other e-book has all the things we brainstormed on to get the members all riled up. We’ll let him get his first. We’ll send the members theirs tomorrow.”
“Good. That ought to get some buzz going. If Gillespie does not kick the Ethiopians out, the church will kick him out. Have you found out anything more about them being here illegally?”
“No,” Zelda said. “I’ve only asked the immigration officials to check them out to see if they are all here legally. I haven’t heard back from Mr. Carrington.”
“That’s not good,” Brother Martin said. “Why don’t you call him again and make it more urgent. You know, toss in something about them disturbing the peace and possibly being responsible for some break-ins.”
“Martin, we don’t want to lie too much now,” his wife said.
“Who says we are lying? We may be stretching the truth a little in thinking ahead as to what may take place,” Brother Martin said. “On that letter we’re sending to Pastor Gillespie, just copy the logo off of the official website and put it on the letterhead and the envelope. If we can just get Gillespie to think that there may be legal trouble down the road for the church if the government finds out that we are sheltering illegal immigrants, that may be enough to get him to slow down on all this integration stuff he’s doing.”
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Sister Mona brought the e-book that had been sent to his e-mail to Pastor Gillespie’s attention.
“This is impressive,” Pastor Gillespie said as he clicked through the first few pages of the e-book titled Getting to Know Our Ethiopian Friends. The front cover featured a large, colorful image of the dancing performance that had taken place at the Ethiopian Celebration that past Sunday. In the front was a letter by Brother Martin to the All Peoples church family praising the inclusion of the Ethiopian community. The rest of the pages were a series of short articles regarding the Ethiopian lifestyle, culture, and Christian faith, complete with colorful pictures of statues, architecture, and artwork. In the back was an advertisement for the Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant as well as an advertisement for the Ethiopian exhibit at the local museum.
“What do you think, Sister Mona?” Pastor Gillespie asked.
“No wonder this took him so long. He put a lot of thought and work into this project. The church and our Ethiopian friends would love this,” Mona replied.
“Email him back and tell him I said it looks great and to go ahead and send it to the rest of the church family,” Pastor Gillespie said. “I can’t wait to hear what Sentayhu will say.”
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Zelda Martin was unsuccessful in getting a hold of Mr. Weldon Carrington. The lady who answered the phone informed her that they would be investigating soon. Zelda spent the rest of the afternoon forging the letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office to Pastor Gillespie. The letter read:
Roland Gillespie:
It has been brought to our attention that you and the All Peoples Non-Denominational Church are sheltering a large number of Ethiopian immigrants who may be in the country illegally. It has been reported that you are encouraging your church members to support their businesses and you have offered to help them find employment.
Please understand that it is a federal offense to support and shelter those who are in the country illegally. If you are aware of illegal immigrants in your community, please inform local law enforcement immediately.
The letter was signed by Weldon Carrington and included the Texas address of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
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When Sister Mona showed Pastor Gillespie the letter he was deeply disturbed.
Brother Martin appeared to be highly upset as well. “We have to find out who is behind this,” he said, shaking his head.
Sentayhu and Bohlale, who had been called in to the meeting, gave Brother Martin a strange look. They were surprised at his reaction. Maybe we have been misjudging him, Sentayhu thought.
Chapter 29
Mother Louise and Sister Mona were on their way to pick up Sister Gillespie for their weekly meeting.
“Sister, we have to move quickly and be direct with her. We have not a moment to lose,” Mother Louise said.
“Why the urgency?” asked Sister Mona.
“Pastor told me that he proposed to Charmaine and she said yes,” Mother Louise said matter-of-factly. “And since he has not heard anything from Sister Gillespie, he is definitely not wasting any time.”
“Wha-a-at?” exclaimed Sister Mona. “Have they set a wedding date? Tell me everything!”
“No, they haven’t. They haven’t even announced the engagement to the church yet.” She turned the corner and pulled into Regina’s driveway. “Now, wipe that excited look off your face before Gloria suspects something. I’ll tell her in good time.”
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Upon arriving at the restaurant, they chose a booth seat. Charmaine attended to them.
“Charmaine, this is Gloria Gillespie,” Mother Louise said as she introduced them. “And Sister Gillespie, this is Charmaine.”
Charmaine greeted Sister Gillespie warmly. “Yes, I’ve seen you here before,” she said.Gillespie, Gillespie, Charmaine thought as she took their order. I wonder if she’s related to Pastor Gillespie somehow.
Sister Gillespie smiled pleasantly enough. “Pleased to meet you again, Charmaine. My sister and I came by a couple of weeks back. You waited on us. Everything was lovely.”
As the ladies enjoyed their meal, Mother Louise got straight to the reason they were there. “Sister Gillespie, we know you’re a smart lady or Pastor would not have married you, but you’re not acting wisely right now.”
“What do you mean, Mother Louise?”
“Here you are married to a very well-known and well-loved man; he has everything going for him; God has richly blessed him and is blessing him now more than ever. As his wife, you had everything a wife could ever want and you are foolishly throwing it away. What would it take for you to admit you acted rashly and immaturely, and to humble yourself, and submit to your husband as the Bible tells you in Ephesians chapter 5: ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’ And go back to your husband before another woman takes him. You are on the verge of losing the greatest blessing that God has ever given you—your husband.”
“Oh, really,” Sister Gillespie said dryly.
“Yes, really,” Mother Louise continued. “Let me put it to you plainly: You had better cut the crap and let go of your pride or whatever you are holding on to and face reality—you are going to completely lose your husband and soon.”
Sister Gillespie stirred her lemonade impatiently.
“You don’t believe us?” Mother Louise asked. “He told me on yesterday that he’s thinking of asking someone to marry him. He told me who, but as of right now I won’t say who she is.”
Sister Mona glanced at Mother Louise across the table, knowing she was only telling half the truth.
Sister Gillespie stopped stirring her drink and her eyes widened. “Already?” she said in a slow, breathless voice.
“Yes, already. Even though Pastor is a good, godly man, he is still a man, and a man needs a woman, so since you left him over some foolishness, he’s moving quickly. I have no reason to lie to you,” Mother Louise said.
“Sister Zelda said he’s just fooling around with one of those Ethiopian women trying to make me jealous. Whoever she is, he’s just using her,” Sister Gillespie retorted.
“You know you can’t believe everything Zelda Martin says,” Sister Mona said. “She’s nothing but a gossiper and a liar. You’ve even said that to me in private.”
Sister Gillespie looked across the restaurant at Charmaine who was tending to another customer. She thought of telling Mother Louise and Sister Mona that Zelda mentioned Charmaine as the one, but decided not to because, as Sister Mona reminded her, Zelda was a gossiper and a liar and had caused division in the ladies’ ministry before.
“Well, what am I supposed to do, now? Obviously he does not want me anymore…and I don’t think I want him either. I mean who would want a man who can only find fault with his wife, always criticizing me no matter what I do. I can never do anything to please him.”
“Enough whining!” Mother Louise said firmly. Sister Mona smiled and nodded as Mother Louise continued, “The last words your husband said to me just this past week was that he waited long enough and he has not heard from you so he is moving on. That’s when he told me he was thinking of asking this young lady to marry him. Obviously, he was willing to reconcile, but the ball is in your court.” Mother Louise fell quiet so Sister Gillespie could process her last words.
Sister Gillespie swallowed hard. Yes, she was trying to wait her husband out; now she knew she was possibly fighting a losing battle.
As if reading her mind, Sister Mona added, “All may not be lost, but you have to admit you were wrong to disrespect your husband and make up your mind to fight for your marriage.”
Before Sister Gillespie could answer, Mother Louise piped in. “You mentioned he is always correcting you. Sister, you know you are not above reproach. Everybody needs correction sometimes, including me.”
Sister Gillespie swallowed hard again. Mother Louise pulled her Bible out of her pocketbook. Oh, no. I am in for it now, Sister Gillespie thought.
“As you know, marriage between a man and a woman is similar to the relationship between Jesus Christ and us, His bride,” Mother Louise began flipping the pages of the Bible rapidly. “Once we get saved we become a part of the bride of Christ. As His bride, when we disobey Him, He chastises us; He teaches us through the Word of God and through biblical preaching, and His Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.”
Turning to Ephesians 5:22-27, Mother Louise read: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Mother Louise looked at Sister Gillespie. “You’ve read this before; in fact, you’ve even taught this in the women’s ministry at the church.
“Christ sanctifies us and cleanses us by His Word. When this passage speaks of spots and blemishes, it is referring to: disobedience, talking back, complaining, showing disrespect, having a bad attitude, lying, rebelliousness, stubbornness, and so on. He wants us to be clean so that He can proudly claim us as His bride; so that He can brag on us a little, if you will.”
Sister Mona nodded. “Husbands are the same way,” she said. “All good, strong husbands lovingly correct their wives when they are wrong because they want their wives to be free of the bad attitudes and sins that make them look ugly. For you know, Sister Gillespie, we can look very pretty on the outside, but we can get ugly real quick in the eyes of our men when we have nasty attitudes and sin in our lives. On the other hand, husbands also encourage and praise their wives when they are fulfilling their God-given roles.”
Sister Gillespie knew Sister Mona was right. She remembered the many times that Pastor Gillespie had said good things about her from the pulpit even when she did not deserve it.
“Sister Gillespie, you may be wondering why I am being so firm with you about this, or why I am even getting involved in this. I’ll tell you. Sister Mona already knows this, but I almost lost my husband after fifteen years of marriage. I was acting as foolish as you are acting right now. Well, my husband started talking to another sister in the church. That was like a dagger piercing my heart, but I refused to humble myself. My sister got so sick of my whining and moping about the house that she told me my husband was planning on leaving me and getting married to someone else. I found out later that she lied only to get me to move on and stop my constant whining. I got angry, but I would deny it bothered me. My mother did the best thing a mother could do: she invited my husband over, had all four of us, including my father in her bedroom and she and my father lectured us for about an hour.” Mother Louise chuckled. “Then they locked us in the bedroom and told us we were not coming out until we got things right. We were in there for about five hours. First there was silence, then my husband said, ‘Let’s just get it over with,’ and broke out laughing. Then I started to laugh. I was laughing even though I was angry. To make a long story short, we yelled at each other, we blamed each other, and then we hugged and kissed each other and made up, if you know what I mean. Well, we spent the next twenty-nine years together until God took him home to Heaven, and I thank God my mother made us do the right thing.”
Sister Gillespie would never have imagined anything like that happening to Mother Louise. “What’s so funny, Mother Louise?” she asked after Mother Louise started to laugh.
“At one point when my husband and I were yelling at each other, my mother, I guess she had been listening through the door, she shouted at us, ‘You both are doing great. Get it all out of your system. You got a ways to go and the door is still locked.’”
The ladies were so engrossed in their conversation they were unaware of Charmaine’s presence. She had come to refill their glasses and overheard Mother Louise’s last few words.
“After a while we settled down and were talking like sensible folks,” Mother Louise said. “My mother shouted through the door again, ‘Are you all making up now? That’s good. I’ll let you out after a while.’”
“I bet it was good too,” Sister Mona said.
“It sure was,” Mother Louise said laughing even harder.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Charmaine said as she reached for their empty glasses.
“Oh, no, we were just exchanging stories,” said Sister Mona.
Charmaine cheerfully refilled their glasses then returned to her other customers.
“So, are you ready to humble down and make the necessary changes in your life to get your husband back?” Sister Mona asked, “‘cause I’m afraid Charmaine has stolen his heart.”
“What?!” exclaimed Sister Gillespie.
Mother Louise glared at Sister Mona. “I told you…” she mouthed.
“So, it is Charmaine,” Sister Gillespie said with a humble, broken voice of hurt. She was not angry with Charmaine; she was hurt that her husband would move so quickly to replace her and that Sister Mona and Mother Louise would sit there talking to her while all along knowing that the woman her husband was interested in was serving her lunch.
Sister Gillespie broke down and started crying at the table. Taking a cloth napkin from the table, she walked quietly, respectfully, and humbly towards the door.