Communities mourn teacher, writer, missionary; Chidzero modeled faith from Rhodesia to Rhode Island

Alice Chidzero
1963-2026
Tharp Funeral Home

A worship service at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., on Friday memorialized teacher, writer, and missionary Alice Chidzero.

Alice Rumbidzaishe Bwerinofa was born to the Shona people in the village of Gutu, Masvingo, in what is today Zimbabwe, Rhodesia in 1963, about 230 km south of Harare. As her friend Lesley Hamer of the Providence Classical School, Williamsburg, Va., shared at the service, what Alice regarded most important about her identity was that she was a follower of Jesus Christ.

Alice often visited Rhode Island, where she lived with her husband Felix Chidzero for their first years in America. They came as students and earned degrees at Rhode Island Bible College.

For some years in Rhode Island, Alice and family attended Barrington Baptist Church (BBC). She worked early in her teaching career at Barrington Christian Academy. Alice attended BBC before my family joined in 2012, but I came to know her through her return visits and legendary reputation.

Alice told the astounding story of her life in a memoir, When the Brook Runs Dry: My Journey from Africa to America ... And Back a Few Times (N.Y. Free Press 2018) (Amazon). As the narrative traces Alice's journey from Rhodesia to Rhode Island, Sierra Leone, and Virginia, the book demonstrates the beliefs that sustained Alice through life's hills and valleys, both the customary community ethos of hunhu and an abiding, foundational faith in God.

Valleys there were. At the service, Hamer told an anecdote, also recounted in the book, of when Alice was stuck in a catch-22 between an expiring visa and compulsion to leave the United States, on the one hand, and airline refusal to let her fly without a visa for transit, on the other hand. 

"Why is Alice's life so hard?," Hamer asked herself at the time, she said.

That was exactly what I asked myself, repeatedly, reading Alice's memoir. She lost a child, a spouse, and parents in too short order. She finished her higher education despite the strain of single-parenting in a foreign country. She navigated the long road to U.S. citizenship. She battled the lifelong effects of rheumatic fever, and later, cancer. All the while, she ministered tirelessly to others, persons in need physically and spiritually, from the U.S. east to West Africa.

Well deserved self-pity is the opposite of how Alice met every challenge in her life. Eschewing any self-indulgence, she carried on and trusted relentlessly in God (Ps. 91). And the memoir demonstrates time and again the endless expanse of his provision.

Alice left this world on September 7. She is survived by her children, Simbarashe and Shekinah, and her grandchildren, Avianna, Zenai, and Xavier. She was predeceased by her parents, Levi and Catherine, by her husband, Felix, and by her daughter, Vimbainashe.

The family welcomes contributions at GoFundMe to help honor Alice's wish that she be laid to rest in Zimbabwe.