A good example for all to follow
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A good example for all to follow
By LISA S. KING
FN Asst. Editor
lisa@nasguard.com
Members of the Central Zion Baptist Church in Eight Mile Rock will be holding a special thanksgiving service this Sunday for a woman of God whose life represents a good example for all to follow.
A quick glance at adorned walls in the living room of Deaconess Nathalie Smith show a number of certificates and plaques hanging with care and indicating the accomplishments of woman who is totally committed to her church and family.
Always willing to greet visitors to her home with a beautiful smile, the 98-year-old woman says she is very happy to still be alive giving God thanks for brining her thus far. The fact that she has lived to see her family expanded to four generations has this precious pearl beaming from ear to ear and is known to give wonderful words of wisdom to those who will listen.
"All the days of my life I have been truly thankful because I have lived a peaceful and honest life on this earth everyday remembering that it is God who has given me the strength to make it," she said. "If I had to live those days again I would do the same things I did always mindful that I am only passing through and when I go, I will say good-bye world I can't be here no longer with you because I gone home to live with my Jesus."
Despite her age, Deaconess Smith, who is affectionately known as 'Tia' to those close to her, is very sharp and alert, remembering most of the important things that has taken place in her life.
Pastor Elvis Burrows of Central Zion Baptist Church said that the thanksgiving service, which also celebrates her birthday, begins at 11a.m. and will honour the life of Deaconess Smith, who is also a founding member of the church.
The service, he said, is a way to commemorate the wonderful things she has done for the church and community in which she lives. In fact, he said the property on which the Church sits was partly donated by Deaconess Smith.
"So we want to give God thanks for the remarkable work that she has done for the church over the years," Pastor Burrows said. "We are just so very grateful to have someone like her in our lives and to have someone of her age and calibre, and someone who has been through life among us."
Pastor Burrows said the church is very excited and looks forward to fellowshipping with Deaconess Smith and her family.
"Too often we see where people only remember the outstanding works of others when they are dead and give them their flowers then," he said. "We want to give Deaconess Nathalie Smith her flowers while she is still alive because she is a extraordinary woman of God who fully deserves it."
Her daughter Ronalee Saunders said her mother made a living for herself as a seamstress having started sewing from a young age in her mother's house. She later moved on to sewing garments for the whole community.
Saunders said her mother was very good at designing wedding dresses and remembers her siblings being the envy of the neighbourhood when her mother made dresses for her sisters.
Deaconess Smith eventually moved on to opening a petty shop selling all kinds of dry goods in a store known to many back then as The Family Store.
"And she served people from East End to West End and a lot of people knew about her store here in Eight Mile Rock," Saunders said.
Remembering when her husband Harold Smith died suddenly years ago, Deaconess Smith said she very appreciative of the good things that has taken place in her life because God has blessed her richly. "He has blessed me, I did not have nobody to look out for me or to take care of me and until now, God has been my husband," she said.
She remembers that her husband was a hard working man who did whatever he could to support his family and one day he just was not feeling good and decided to lay down in bed until he felt better.
"I did look at him that morning and I notice his features started to look different, I say to him how different he did look and asked him if he wanted me to get the doctor and he said no. I said to myself this man dying on me and just as I was thinking, he died just like that, just closed his eyes and left me."
Smith had 10 children, three of whom died at the same time many years ago because of Typhoid fever and a son named Joe, who died in his sleep several years ago at age 32. She recalled how painful it was to lose three kids at one time saying they were buried the same day they died because in the 1930s there were no morgues to take dead bodies to or funeral homes that were able to preserve a loved one for a few days before burial.
"I have been through much, my husband died when I was young, I had three of my children died all in one week," she said. "Through it all, I have never gone to bed hungry or never had to beg nobody for nothing. I have never had a job in my life, I have always been working for myself and my children. "
Her advice to young people is do their best to live clean and honest. One should never practice lying she said, it is wrong and so is stealing. She added that young people should live in fear of God as all liars and thieves go to hell and are punished for their wrong doing.
"I believe that parents ought to teach their children how to speak and not use the fowl words I hear coming out of the mouth of some of today's children," she said. "Teach them by example, let them see through your life how they should live. I spoke to a young boy the other day I said 'look come here, you have to stop saying those kind of words it is wrong' and he said, "I ain't never had no one tell about that before, I ain't never hear nobody talk about God like you" and he did it right before his mother. This young person thanked me for caring enough to tell him what was right."
Smith said the one thing she does not practice in her daily living is lying and has never taken anything from anyone a day in her life that was not hers. She advises that it is good to tell the truth as the truth sets one free. In fact, the cheerful old lady says she detests liars and thieves.
"I have never regretted one day that I chose to live a decent life and now I am just watching and waiting for when my time come," she said. "This building I live in, I never been to bank in my life to borrow a penny. Everything I build, I build with the work of my hands and it was all God who gave me the strength to do it."
SURROUNDED BY LOVE Having lived for 98 years, Deaconess Nathalie Smith, affectionately called 'Tia' by those close to her, is pictured surrounded by her children. Deaconess Smith said she is very fortunate to see that her family has expanded to about four generations.
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