Ezekiel was a radical who lived and died for Christ in northern Mozambique.  Our World Race teams met his widow and I listened to his story from a coworker named Michael Laubscher.

He told us about how Ezekiel saw all the orphans whose parents had died of malaria and decided to do something about it.  He and his wife Rita began to take them into their home.

He saw the plight of his Muslim neighbors and began to reach out to them, a dangerous thing to do in an area that is predominantly Muslim.

Ezekiel 's unorthodox ministry began to attract attention.  Muslim leaders in the area wanted him silenced.  He was disturbing the status quo.  And so, last October, three shadowy men pulled him off behind some bushes and stabbed him to death.

This is where the story begins to get interesting.  As any student of Christian history knows, "the blood of martyrs is the seedbed of the church."  Ezekiel  left behind two disciples determined to carry on the ministry – his widow, Mama Rita, and a blind man named Peter (pictured above).

Mama Rita is beautiful. An absolutely amazing woman. She just feels like home. Her scars are from her childhood village traditions. They were thought to be more beautiful if they had scars.continued to take in orphans and care for them.  She and Peter have continued to expand their ministry, opening orphanages and planting churches.

Though they owned little, they shared it freely with our teams and so impacted them that they declared it the highlight of their trip around the world.  Patrice Deaton, Andi Wendel and Angie Tibbo write about their experience in their blogs