Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                           December 3rd 2022

Trust is rare.  I wasn’t going to write about the other funeral, the quieter one, the only slightly smaller one.  I gathered up the young cousin of the deceased and took her with a bag of clothes to the mortuary below the hospital up on the mountain.  I then left her there to wash and clothe her cousin and at her direction followed a piki-piki(motorcycle) to her uncle’s house.  There I was instructed to back in, park the truck and then enter the compound to sit by the front step with Mama Mchungaji Ombeni, Pastor Ombeni’s spouse, a friend. 

My job in those long early moments of the long day was the same as Mama Mchungaji.  Attend, be with, a family whose 18 year old daughter was being brought home to be buried in the small banana grove behind the home.  Chai and mandazi, tea and deep fried flour dough shapes like donut only not always that circular, were joyfully served.  I drank all the tea and ate one of the mandazi served asking that the rest be shared out among those making preparations.  Time passed with little ones coming to quietly look, a couple then even choosing to sit near me. 

The brother of the one dropped at the mortuary to wash and dress came and collected me after changing the clothes he had worn all morning to put up canopies, set up chairs, and take a turn with the shovel crew in the banana grove to open the earth for his cousin.  “It is time Babu.”  We walked out of the compound to find a short line of cars, all washed and ribbon-ed in purple and white.  Our little truck had also been so adorned. 

People gathered through the banana trees to the narrow dirt drive and were sorted into each decorated car.  This would be a rare luxury for folks who rarely travel other than by foot.  I was trusted with the brother of the washing and dressing cousin and also with three young girls to fill the back seat.  It wasn’t until later that I learned that those three young girls, I was trusted with, were the deceased ones younger siblings.  The youngest had been gathered to stay with Mom and Dad in another car. 

The luxury of travel in a car was meaningless but for the level of fatigue of those mourning.  Young girls stifling sobs and smearing tears could care less for the means of travel.  In these overlong sleepless sorrow-filled moments, however, the means of travel made the travel to the mortuary to collect and bring sister home to the small banana grove possible. 

This is how the stupid little truck pays for itself, no matter how many repairs, no matter how many trips to empty fuel stations to find one with diesel.

After collecting sister and caring cousin the short motorcade took everyone back home.  There was no church portion for this smaller funeral.  Instead Mchungaji’s gathered at the home and presided there.  I was seated with them.  Purposely I put myself in the furthest seat in the row.  Never knowing, one often thinks about what one could say if called upon.  I was not. 

If I had been, it would have been the story of Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, raised by Jesus.  The obvious piece being that with Jesus there is more life, count on it.  The less than obvious pieces would  include that Jesus wept at the human loss, joined the human loss.  Another would have been to watch the hands.  Jesus said to open the grave.  The hands of regular people moved the stone away.  Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave and told regular folks to use their hands to unbind him of the grave clothes. 

Having spent the morning with these in mourning I had wanted to be prepared to remind the community that our hands have a role to play in helping people find freedom from what binds them.  That long after the grave is refilled and covered with flowers.  That long after the sermons and the food are all gone we have to keep unbinding this family from their loss.  We get to live The Kingdom of God right here and right now by spending time to unbind them from those less than visible grave clothes that make breathing hard, that make seeing beyond the cloud of tear hard too. 

Mother to this child looked seventy with stress and then no more than eighteen herself.

This 18 year old daughter had been unable to attend church.  She was her parents’ miracle child.  Born hydrocephalic and with torturous spinal deformations she had lived without medical treatment in their home and in their care for 18 years.  Prayer and care did indeed make this precious and beloved child the miracle the whole family regarded her as.    

I walked around their precious child with the Mchungaji’s then over to those strong parents giving my wrist to be bumped by theirs.  I had only given them time.  They had given me their other children to transport across the mountain and back.  Then they decided to trust me with their dignified tears, their heads bending towards each other as they looked up from their seats to see my own eyes full but not leaking.

I am not made completely of stone.  Neither is God.  As another Mchungaji arose to speak the sky opened up and water in the compound was two inches deep in minutes. 

The well-worn canopies deflected most to the sides but not all.  From my furthest of Mchungaji seats I got my chance to preach.  Outside the canopies were many other elders.  I gave my seat to the first Bibi(grandmother) I could then stood in the rain gathering as many of my fellow white-haireds in front of me and as far under the canopy as could be packed.  If I am not in the way, it is amazing how many people can fit. 

Preaching slackened as did the rain. 

People standing in water parted to make way for the deceased miracle child to be carried into the banana grove.  All Mchungaji’s went with her.  As the preaching began at the head of the grave and she was lowered in by hand the sky opened up again.  Young men had jumped into the grave to lower her into their mornings work. 

Nearly everyone endured, some picking banana leaves for use as an umbrella.  The bathing and dressing cousin came and stood next to me.  After a time she took my glasses and carefully wiped them with her kitenge so I could see a little better.  She wiped her own.  She gave me her cousin’s glasses to hold so she could do this.  He had gone forward without his glasses to help with the shifting of soil and stone to inter the daughter brought home, and going home.

The bathing and dressing cousin stepped forward and gathered two bunches of flowers into her arms.  She gave one to me.  After nearly all the mourners had placed flowers standing in the freshly turned soil atop the grave she stepped forward, I alongside, to place every flower we held likewise. 

Then as I was turning to follow back to the canopies I saw the final mourners coming forward.  This is when I learned who had been trusted to me and our stupid little truck.  Mother, Father, and those young girls who had sobbed quietly and smeared tears over broken faces in the safety of that back seat.  All the way to the mortuary.  All the way back.

Without the privilege of efficient verbal communication, something real, somethings good got done. 

That is not possible without what each of you do.  I am impossibly inadequate in too many ways to enumerate.  I am only a witness reporting to you about the miracles God is doing everywhere and all the time. 

Thank you for the prayers that make that possible.  You are all part of beautiful things.  We are made for that.  Thanks again.

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Also please Pray for:

Hilda’s temporary contract with the local NGO ends next month, her work will hopefully transition over to Tanzanian hands.  If not it will come to a close.  Money is super-tight here like at home there.  We don’t know what is ahead though the few locals in the know are working as hard as we to discover what that may be.  We know we are used and God’s trust is even more beautiful than the trust we have among God’s children here.  Keep your good work up?  Please.  You are doing the best of best by taking even a moment of your precious time with God to think of, to mention, us.

Yes, reluctantly, you can help us if you wish and you don’t need tax paperwork.  We cannot provide that.  We are just folks.  We are not an organization.  Your Church is an organization and can provide paperwork and if moved by The Holy Spirit can help us and get you that paperwork.

If that is not possible, please consider The Small Things of Nkoaranga, Tanzania.  They are the parent NGO responsible for The Children’s Village we have been diligently around and among this last year.  They can get you tax paperwork and have sincere needs to attend.  The perimeter fence project and more importantly, on-going school fees for about fifty children.  These are too much for this old couple who live hand to mouth alone, but, money goes much further here.  These are easy do’s for a group of us.  God Bless you for reading and even considering.  Thank you.

Gratitude..

Gratitude for our time in the Pacific Northwest and over to Colorado for those dear children and grandchildren who miss us and whom we are overjoyed to have had our precious time with.

Makumira Secondary School, my brilliant helper Elisha’s school, is looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

Imbasenny school is one of two schools run by a Mchungaji here.  He requests prayer for Imbasenny school as that school has no external support and parents school fees fall short of what the job takes.

Hilda’s continued invisibility to those who can only see their own authority –

Visa situation..  Good now until after Christmas..  May we be able to learn and be lead into what is best for the benefit of what God would have us do, how God would have us do those things and stewardship of the resources God has put into us for Gods purposes -

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us, for us to let our health fail so others can shine –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it –

For you who find other ways to uplift and support us -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, skipping stone and even groaning prayers make all the difference..

If we should ever cross your mind, even if we are strange and confusing, just grunt, crumple us up and throw us at God.  That is where we need to be.. 

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music