DON’T LET THE DREAM DIE

 Father David Everitt R.I.P.

Friend of Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement and the Mother of Peace Community Aids Orphanage.

He brought us joy and we loved him dearly.

Father David was born in Leicester in 1947, the first of four brothers, where he grew up and was educated.  He was a keen and competitive sportsman, excelling in football.  Music was another of his great gifts, and growing up in the era of flower-power, he wished to help create a better world.  David worked in Leicester until he was 19 years old when, after much soul-searching, he felt that he had been called in to the Priesthood.  He studied at Campion House, Osterley, and then in the English College, Valloild in Spain, together with five other candidates from the diocese.

After his ordination and two years as a busy young priest he volunteered, together with his friend, Fr. Peter Coyle, to go to Zambia as a mission priest.  In Africa David found his real home and his peace and happiness.  It was no easy life but David never talked of hardships and leaving his family.  He just regaled us with many of his wonderful stories of his mission and his joy of working with his beloved Africans.  We never grew tired of David’s stories of his Zambian years and of his friends there.  His bishop in England, after speaking to Brian Clough, arranged for some football strip to be sent to Zambia for the youngsters.  As a life-long devoted fan of Leicester City Football Club, you can only imagine David’s reaction when he opened the long-awaited parcel to find Nottingham Forest kit inside!  He is still remembered throughout the Livingstone Diocese and beyond.  It has been said that he loved God so much that he has left them a legacy of the Enactment of the Passion of Christ.  He started it with the youth in Livingstone, but now it has spread all over the country.  He is also remembered for taking visitors down to Victoria Falls at night and regaling them with ghost stories!

His heart was in Africa because he was first and foremost a true missionary priest.  After seven years working in the Diocese of Livingstone he was recalled to England.  He worked in various parishes giving himself passionately to God’s work and his life was poured out to all he ministered to.  His life was not easy and he had a deeply tender and sensitive nature.  David had given his all and, having lost his beloved mother, he suffered burnout leading to a severe mental breakdown and depression.

David travelled a hard road, but with his usual courage and deep faith he fought back to health.  Over the next two years, with help, the healing process began.  He started a voluntary job with CAFOD where he heard of the Mother of Peace Community in Zimbabwe which runs an orphanage for victims of AIDS, and who needed a resident priest. He was a great admirer of John Bradburne who had lived on a leper colony a short distance from the MoPC. John Bradburne dedicated his life to the Mutemwa leper colony but, sadly, was murdered during the War of Independence in what was then Rhodesia.  David knew then that he wanted to. return to Africa as a resident priest to Mutemwa and the MoPC.  In preparation he started to learn Shona, the language of the region.

In 2007 David eventually returned to Africa to start his mission at the leper colony.  His new home, Mutemwa, lies in a valley between Chigona and Mutemwa mountains, near Mutoko in the North-East of Zimbabwe.  This is where his heart belonged.  He followed John Bradburne in his deep devotion and service to the destitute, the outcast of society and the poorest of the poor — the lepers.  Reading through his article written in the 2007 winter edition of “The John Bradburne Newsletter”, he told us of his three months spent on the leper colony.  Like Jesus, St Francis and John Bradburne, he loved and embraced these people.  He served them with deep humility, helping them with bathing and feeding.  He spent time talking, laughing, joking and praying with them, and making these social pariahs feel valued and helping to restore their dignity.  Each Saturday he would invite about six of them to a meal in his house where he would serve up a plateful of chicken, rice and vegetables.  As this was the first time the lepers had received such an invitation, many of them had to borrow clothes in order to dress up for the occasion.  David recorded this special event on film.  David served them with love and dignity and he will now be loving and serving them from heaven.

The summer sun rises very early in Africa.  Several times a week, at 5am, David would walk to the MoPC for prayers and to celebrate mass.  He would be with his beloved orphans and the leaders, Jean and Stella, and all those who devote their lives to the Community.  David treasured the wonderful memories of the children partaking in the service, playing drums, dancing and singing — the joy of an African mass.  He found great happiness and deep peace ministering to the Community, feeding babies with tenderness and tears, many of them dying of AIDS.  David loved children and they loved him.  He had a childlike simplicity about him that attracted them.  His films of them are beautiful.  Whenever there was a chance there was football, dancing and music.  The orphanage would join the lepers for a beautiful mass in the John Bradburne chapel where the whole community would celebrate with singing.  He had great plans for the children and the leper colony.  It was his vision to bring them together. 

On Fridays David would climb Chigona Mountain to pray at John’s memorial cross and to rest and meditate.  Time permitting, he would take visitors and the children up the mountain.  Chigona is a hard climb, but once at the top the views are magnificent.  You can see the leper colony below and the orphanage in the distance.  The rocks are covered with various coloured lichens, and eagles circle overhead.  Crows play and show off in the sky, and you feel a part of it all — your heart soars.

David came back to England and worked tirelessly to raise funds and people’s awareness of the plight of the lepers and the orphans.  He hoped to return to Mutemwa in 2008 to live on the colony as parish priest for both communities, and to share the workload of the priests from All Soul’s Mission.  His dream was to start a spiritual mission at Mutemwa in honour and respect of John Bradburne’s life.  Unfortunately, he was unable to return due to the worsening political situation in Zimbabwe.

Sadly, in 2009, when he had planned to return to Mutemwa, he was diagnosed with cancer.  David battled for 16 months against the cancer which eventually ended his life.  Through it he showed great courage and faith.  David passed away in peace on Easter Sunday night.

David’s body was brought into St Joseph’s Church, Leicester, at 7pm on Friday the 16^th of April, for his first funeral mass.  The Requiem Mass on Saturday morning was attended by three bishops and the brotherhood of priests, many of whom were his very close friends.  The church, both on the Friday evening and Saturday morning, was filled with his friends, several who had travelled from abroad.  Present were the lovely Franciscan sisters who had loved and nursed him through his last two months.  His request was for the Zimbabwean Catholic Community choir to sing at both funeral masses.  True to their culture, they sang and prayed around the coffin on Friday evening and again at the graveside.  The music at the funeral services was the same as David had chosen for his farewell mass before his journey to Zimbabwe in 2007.  His coffin was laid on the very spot where he had been ordained as a young man, 34 years before.  Although a very sad occasion, the church was filled with joy and thanksgiving, prayer and praising David’s life.  The homilies and tributes reflected the man and the priest. It was a wonderful send off.

He was a true Franciscan.  David was born at St Francis Nursing Home in Leicester.  He followed in the footsteps of St Francis throughout his ministry.  Father David passed away at the St Francis Convent, Melton Mowbray, surrounded by his loving family and the Franciscan sisters.  Father David was a 3^rd Order Franciscan like John Bradburne, and hoped to continue the work started by John Bradburne.

Hearing the tributes paid to David, we can see the effect he had on all of us who knew him and many more whose lives were deeply touched.  We saw in him so much of God’s love. David was a man of vision, of deep compassion and kindness, patience, humility, wisdom and discernment.  He was a very ‘human’ being with his love of life and fantastic sense of humour.  David was a man of prayer who walked very close to God, and through his faith and tender nature he served God and people with deep humility.  He was passionate and full of energy in all his many projects and visions.  His devotion and love for his church, his family and friends, his music and his football, for the lonely and marginalised, the outcast, the orphan children, and his passionate love for Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mutemwa, and the MoPC, left a deep impression on us all.

Father David, we salute you.  Sadly, not all your dreams were realised, but we know that you are with your Lord, whom you loved and served so faithfully.  You bought joy and love to all who knew you.  You loved Jesus and worked tirelessly for Him as a man, priest and missionary.  You will enrich heaven as you enriched our lives.

For us a light has gone, but for you a new dawn has risen where you can be with your loved ones.  Your time on earth is over, but your dream lives on.  You will continue to help us from heaven.  Your beautiful free spirit is now soaring over your mountains and valleys of Africa with John Bradburne and the eagles.

Our deepest sympathy and condolences to David’s loving family and friends and to Mutemwa.

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