The woman who heads the area Anglican diocese has a question nagging at her, a question she spoke about passionately during a recent sermon at St. John’s the Baptist Episcopal Church in the Seacliff area.<\/p>\n
That question is whether a 12-year-old Tanzanian boy named Sadiki would still be alive if she had not encountered him one day, in March, in a remote area of that East African country.<\/p>\n
Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves told of that brief encounter movingly and with self-reproach.<\/p>\n
It is a story that changed her life, the boy’s life and struck a chord with many others, Gray-Reeves said. It is undeniably tragic, yet growth has sprung from it.<\/p>\n
The chance meeting with a disfigured child — an epileptic scarred and infected after falling into a cooking fire during a seizure — has led to a campaign by church members in the diocese to provide solar cooking classes, scholarships and other help to the boy’s village.<\/p>\n