THE ZABULI MAGAZINE 2020 EDITION: FEATURES- KATALINA MEZU

Gospel artiste Katalina Mezu’s calm voice and careful enunciation of words belies her hard-rock core enveloped by a solid 3-faceted ministry on which she operates: religious, educational and social purpose.

She looks toward being an inspiration and being celebrated for touching people’s lives. It is her desire that through her story, someone would look at her and still manage to smile, keep their head up and make other people happy. At the end of the day, she wants to be remembered for having inspired strength in others through her story.

Katalina grew up in a humble family, being raised concurrently alongside her mother by her grandmother where she witnessed daily the hard work of women in her home. Her mother gave birth to her while still a teenager; and her father, a military doctor, died while she was still very young. She speaks matter-of-factly of her upbringing and very fondly of her grandmother.

“In my family I do not have many men I look up to because my father died when I was still a young girl. So I have grown up in the mentorship of my mother, grandmother and her sisters- these are the women who inspire me mostly. My grandmother’s name was Fatuma and I loved her with all my heart. She was a social worker.”

The little time that her father was in her life was also very fundamental to her. She held him in high regard, idolizing him as a most untouchable figure. Of him, she say, “He was my superhero, my superman. He seemed untouchable to me; he was the greatest doctor ever and greatest security in our house.”

Katalina’s father’s death pulled the rug from under her feet and shook the ground on which she stood. She hardly had time to mourn, looking on in a bewildering while the rapidly deteriorating turn of events, thrust her forward into her father’s very large shoes. In taking over his responsibilities at a very young age, she hit the ground running.

Her self-sacrificial and altruistic spirit over time sustained the new status quo and ironically is often the reason for her hitting her life’s lowest lows.

“I have often felt like I have to always look out for everyone in my life, make sure they are happy, taken care of, and safe. I seems as if I have built the perception that I am generally okay and when I am struggling with an issue, it is assumed that I am fine and yet I am not. I am the one looking out for others but this reality often hits me, that I do not have that one person to look out for me. Often times I ask myself, ‘It’s your responsibility to look out for others but who looks out for me?'”

“During such moments, only by the grace of God have I been able to cope. After talking about through these issues with my mother who is my best friend and confidante, I then withdraw from the word and retreat into a season of quiet time with God. After such a moment, I often feel duly refreshed.”

Similarly, her highest points in love have been every single day someone told her that she inspires them; and she realized that she was a reason for someone to smile or have hope to live the next day. If brought down to simply smiles and reason to live another day, then her daughter-Kiesza, who she refers to as the greatest love of her life is her life’s biggest highlight.

She also recounts an encounter she had at a prayer retreat as one other highlight and strongly determinant moment of her life.

“I know a lady called Betty- a much anointed woman of God, plus a couple of other ladies I did not know” she recounts. “You know I always have this feeling of not being good enough; that I don’t know how to pray and that I’m not good enough to stand before God or before his people; but then Betty and these different other women all came to me on their own with different variations of the same words: ‘Katalina, you are a place. You have power in these hands of yours. If ever you are stranded or anything ever fails, command it with your mouth and touch it.’ To me, this was voice of God being spoken by and being affirmed by different people. In a deeply special, surreal and spiritual way, I felt all self-doubt within me vanish in an instant.”

Of herself, Katalina says she is still a work in progress, working towards being the best version of herself as she works through life’s challenges common to every person such as bills, daily expenses and the difficult task of adapting herself to never-ending patterns of change where learning new things is demanded of her.

On the spiritual side, her Christianity is daily put to the task as she seeks to grow, know more of God’s word and get more rooted in it. Then there is the issue of identity:

“I struggle with being misunderstood, being a kind of social misfit where people feel like I am not living up to their expectations.”

Overall, she does not consider these challenges extraordinary but those common to the everyday person.

PS: The above story was first published in the inaugural Zabuli Magazine at last year’s Girl Get Up event in March 2020