Adela Jean Smith

Across from me sat a woman whose life seemed to move with quiet determination, as if momentum itself were part of her character. As she spoke, I sensed early on that hers was not a story shaped by hesitation, but by forward motion — even when the road demanded more than most would willingly give.

She began with memories of her father, a businessman who owned an auto glass company and brought her along each evening to witness the discipline of work. Their separation created a long silence — nearly twenty years without knowing where he was — until she boarded a train to find him, closing a distance that time alone could not justify.

Education became another act of courage. At a time when few Black students in her hometown attended college, she rose before dawn to prepare her children and still make it to class. When encouraged to enroll full-time, she accepted the challenge and earned a scholarship, spending little more than the cost of her cap and scissors to complete her education.

One remarkable week, her daughter graduated high school while she herself graduated from college — a portrait of generational ascent unfolding in real time.

What struck me most was her refusal to remain idle. A chance moment in a friend’s travel agency awakened an entrepreneurial spark that soon carried her across continents — from Australia to Istanbul — guided, as she described it, by a sense of divine assignment and protection.

Listening to her, I understood that some lives are not merely lived — they are pursued, with faith as both compass and companion.