The Honorable Mr. Calvin Spann, one of the last remaining original Tuskegee Airman past September 6, 2015 at 90 years old. It was my great pleasures to meet him and for him relate some of his stories.
By: “Sister Tarpley”
John paced up and down outside his cabin and asked, “Why did the Lord allow my wife to suffer so, to approach death with no hope of a doctor’s help?
Perhaps they should never have come to this lonesome jungle—with not a government outpost near.
Why did they come to Africa? But no! That was doubting God. He had sent them here, and He had blessed their work; souls had been saved, a church established. God wanted them here.
But why was God allowing his wife to die? She couldn’t last the week out until the messenger would bring the doctor from the coast.
And, that strange request of hers, three ripe tomatoes. She thought they would help her, give her nourishment to sustain her until the doctor arrived.
As far as John knew, there weren’t three ripe tomatoes in all of Belgian Congo. There might be some canned tomatoes at their distant outpost, but ripe ones? They just did not grow tomatoes in this part of Africa.
John thought of praying for tomatoes, but considered it unreasonable to ask God for the impossible.
Tomatoes couldn’t grow like the beanstalk in the old fairy tale even if he did have seeds, and he didn’t.
Steadily the tropical fever was burning the very life from John’s wife. By nightfall she was so weak she could not talk; lack of food had sapped her strength until she could only moan and whisper occasionally to her husband.
Only the prayers of the entire mission compound kept her alive through that night, alive to face another day of suffering—physical for her, mental for John.
As he leaned over her bed in the morning, again he heard her whisper, “If-only-I-had-three rip tomatoes.”
In agony John heard that dying request—three ripe tomatoes. If only it were humanly possible to get them.
He would go to any extreme. He picked up his wife’s hot hand and gripped it compassionately in his.
As he stood looking down at his wife, a native servant appeared at the door and said there was a near-by tribeswoman out in front who wanted to see him.
Reluctantly John left his wife and stepped outside. He had never seen this woman before, yet her tribal dress was familiar.
Questioning her, he found that his guess had been correct—a bush-woman from the tribe he had visited last month. But what was she doing here at this season of the year?
His question was answered. She had been sent to him for advice. Food was scarce this season, but she was afraid to eat this queer fruit she had grown from seeds left her by a white man. Were they all right to eat?
As John peered into the basket she carried, he almost cried for joy, these tomatoes came now in answer to his wife prayers and in rebuke to his doubts.
And not only that, but the bewildered Black woman said that she had more! She scurried to get them at the missionary’s plea.
John’s wife ate the tomatoes and lived until the doctor arrived with healing medicine, she lived for a successful ministry through the amazing appearance of three ripe tomatoes, that were planted, raised and ripened at the appropriate time by the hand of the all-wise God.
The seeds were sown long before—because someone prayed. The Black woman brought the tomatoes to the missionary—because someone prayed. –From Miracles and Melodies. Only God Can Do The Miraculous!
