The Department of Community Development and Citizenship Engagement Division, under the Ministry of Social Transformation, is delighted to celebrate the 101st birthday of a local centenarian on Sunday, August 18, 2024.
Mrs. Edna Parker Chiddick was born on 3rd August 1923 but was registered on 18th August 1923 and was the only child of Mrs Margaret Benjamin Simon and Mr. Thomas Parker of Ebenezer Village.
She attended the Greenbay Primary School up to the seventh standard.
She was married to Mr. Alfred Chiddick on 27th August 1955 and is a proud mother of 13 children, the grandmother of 26, the great-grandmother of 28 and the great-great-grandmother of 1.
Edna is a God-fearing, praying woman who laboured faithfully in her Lord’s vineyard.
She was an active and dedicated Greenbay Moravian church women’s fellowship member for many years.
She sang in the choir, attended Sunday school, and visited and ministered to the shut-ins.
Her unwavering faith in God has enabled her to attain contentment, peace and inner harmony. Her inner strength and tenacity spring from her well of personal prayer and time spent with her Lord.
She had learnt over the years to turn the noise of life into the music she wants to hear, she is always singing her favourite songs “Trust and obey”, “God holds the key of all unknown, ” and “It’s not an easy road,” “Am a child of a king,” “Zion’s hill” and “when they ring the golden bells for you and me.
She hasn’t let life’s challenges harden her or rob her of the gleam in her eyes and hope in her heart.
She learnt to place her future in God’s hand. She knows the pain of sorrow as she buried her husband and three sons but presses on.
Struggle does not cause her to become weak.
Edna has become her children’s seamstress, role model, confidant, counsellor, friend and prayer warrior.
Her children are united because she made them this way. To her family, she is truly a Proverbs 31 woman.
Her price is far above rubies.
