A Place to Belong

Naume Keresia Salizani grew up in a humble home in a family of nine children. Her father had come from Malawi looking for work. To make a living, she and her siblings helped grow and sell sugarcane and sweet potatoes. Despite these challenges, she had a happy childhood. “I enjoyed my life as a young person, because my father and mother, well, they loved each other. And they loved us,” she said. “So I was so, so happy.”

Naume’s brother joined the Church in the 1980s, when she was a teenager. He invited her to attend with him. She agreed. “I just felt the Spirit,” she recalled. “I just felt like I belonged there.” Before leaving for his own mission, her brother baptized Naume in a nearby river with a strong current. “I was very skinny. He had to hold me tight because the water was flowing so hard,” she laughed. “I had to just hold on for my life.”

One of the missionaries who had taught Naume was named Edward Dube. Like Naume, Edward was raised in humble circumstances. As a child he walked over seven kilometers each way to school, barefoot, and helped his parents in the fields after school. As a young man he worked as a domestic servant for a white Latter-day Saint family, who invited him to church.

When Edward first went to church, he felt uncomfortable, because the congregation was overwhelmingly white. “As I walked into the chapel, I just wanted to walk back out,” he recalled. After church, he remembered, the branch president greeted him, but other members’ behavior made him feel unwelcome: “With those eyes, you know? With just the eyes, like you don’t belong here.”

Shortly thereafter, Edward attended district conference in Harare, where he saw many Black Church members. Encouraged, he continued attending and was baptized in August. Two years later, he served as a full-time missionary. During this time, he taught Naume and her family. During his 27 months of missionary service, Edward went from being “quiet” to gaining confidence as he worked with and learned to love many people different from himself.

After his mission, he and Naume began writing letters and eventually decided to marry. They planned a simple ceremony in which she would wear an ordinary dress and he would wear his missionary suit. But the Relief Society sisters of Edward’s branch in Kwekwe stepped in to help. Naume ended up choosing between three beautiful wedding gowns. Their parents, siblings, and fellow Church members filled the Kwekwe chapel on that joyful day.