Azevedo, Ambrosina

Mrs. Ambrosina Azevedo was a devout woman and a school teacher at São Domingues on São Tiago. She watched from her house one day in about 1944 when a meeting on the street under a tree was broken up and the Nazarene believers had to flee for their lives. The local priest, Padre Cunha, had given wine to a hundred and fifty of his followers and drank himself into a fighting frenzy. Then he led the attack on the Nazarenes.

Dona Ambrosina was horrified at the spectacle. Finding no comfort from the images of saints in her home she fell on her knees and prayed. She promised to forsake the images and follow the new way. As she prayed she felt a strange warmth in her soul that she had never before experienced. She had found the Lord all alone and arose with a happy heart. She threw out the images. The next day she went to Praia to tell her daughter and the daughter sought the Lord at the next mission service.

Because of her new faith Dona Ambrosina was forced to leave her government position as school teacher. She did not become discouraged and was later sanctified wholly. She became the president of the missionary society in the Praia Church [1].

Paul S. Dayhoff

Olive G. Tracy, The Nations and the Isles : A Study of Missionary Work of the Church of the Nazarene in the Nations - Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Italy - and the Isles - the Cape Verde Islands, (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1958), 196.

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Living Stones In Africa: Pioneers of the Church of the Nazarene, revised edition, copyright © 1999, by Paul S. Dayhoff. All rights reserved.