He Hoped I Would Come: A Dying Father's Wish

FOR RELEASE MAY 5, 2024

In 2010, Susie Keefer made her first trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa.

She was part of a small team representing the Peter D. Weaver Congo Partnership, a ministry started by a Delaware United Methodist bishop who was answering a cry for help from African bishops. Together, the American and Congolese churches created nutritional and medical programs designed to meet the acute needs of the Congolese people.

Susie had come a long way from the small Pennsylvania town in which she had grown up, and she was full of uncertainty. Had she correctly interpreted the call of God?

Nothing in her life had fully prepared her for this. Equipped with degrees in special education, she had been a successful leader in the Special Olympics organization. She and her husband, Ed, had led youth groups for many summers in a church program called the Appalachia Service Project.

But the Democratic Republic of the Congo was different. A big step into the totally unknown.

Little could Susie have imagined that she would meet and bond with a small child named Miriam, whom she met in the nutrition program; that she and her husband Ed would end up adopting Miriam and bringing her home to Delaware; and that they would establish a new feeding program for children, called Miriam's Table, which would call them back to the Congo over and over again.

This is their remarkable and moving story, as told by Susie herself.