Kake Elizabete came as a girl to Nyanga, a station of the Congo Inland Mission (Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission) in the West Kasai of the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), to continue her grade school education. She married in her teens and soon bore a son. After some years her husband left her. Meanwhile, her son in early adulthood showed signs of mental instability. To support herself and her disabled son she took the opportunity offered by medical missionaries at Nyanga for training in midwifery.

From the beginning it became clear that quiet, self-effacing Kake wanted to learn the skills of midwifery well and that she brought to her work a concern and compassion for the women who came under her care. No hour was too early or too late for her to be roused from her bed if a prospective mother needed her. The tribe or social status of the woman made no difference to Kake; they were all her sisters, and they all received her sacrificial and loving care.

Unless prevented by her work at the maternity clinic, she was always in church for services and meetings of the women's group. For the annual women's harvest festival offering Kake always had her own woven hamper full of hand-threshed millet to give as an offering, millet she somehow found time to plant, cultivate, and harvest in the midst of her busy life. To learn to know her was to admire her, to be inspired by her, and to love her as a dear sister in the Lord.

Cite This Article

Author(s)	James E Bertsche
Date Published	1987

MLA style

Bertsche, James E. "Kake Elizabete." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1987. Web. 21 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kake_Elizabete&oldid=175069.

APA style

Bertsche, James E. (1987). Kake Elizabete. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 21 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kake_Elizabete&oldid=175069.

Kake Elizabete

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