Day of Burial for Lokadi

We had a long exhausting day. Kelly and the kids (along with teammates, the Prices, as well as our visiting friends, the Glovers) all showed up around 7:30a to begin the day's events. This was the Christian "church service" even though it was conducted in an open air format outside Ega's mud hut (shaded by a tarp). Typical of Africa, things didn't actually start until well after 9a but it was good just to be there and be present with Ega and his family and friends who are so crushed by Lokadi's death. I remember someone once saying that people will likely never remember many of your sermons, but they will never forget the hours you sat with them after a loved one died.

A somber service included prayers, songs, and I gave a short message. This is one of the hardest things to do...eulogize a dear friend's wife in a language that is still so unfamiliar to me. I want so bad to speak words of true intimiate friendship and deep emotions of pain/loss/grief, but I still found myself repeating familiar phrases. However, the Lord does work through those words, and I believe that Ega and his family were ministered today by the Word of God.

I was also asked to transfer the casket (made locally out of mahogany; cost=$80) from Ega's village to the home village of Lokadi (about 5 miles away). Wish you could have seen the sight. My white 4-door Toyota LandCruiser topped off with a mahagony casket strapped down to the luggage rack (with stretch bungee cords), while hoards of family and friends danced and sang songs of mourning as we inched along this long dusty road toward Lokadi's home village. Ega was not in the car with me, but we did have his 3 older kids with us in the front seat. My heart breaks every time I see one of them.

Lokadi was the only Christian in her family. We completed the Christian service Ega requested, but the body belongs to her family so we watched from a distance as they danced, drummed, and sang songs not of our God. They were not hostile to us, however. Even as we requested, they were kind to allow a number of us to stand next to hole where the casket would be buried. Here in Benin, especially out here in the deep village, people are buried inside someone's mud hut (no communal cemeteries exist). So about 20 of us piled into this 10x10 room and sang songs, prayed, and heard brief words of encouragement from the Word of God. At the time of putting the casket into the hole, two men jumped down into the hole and the other "palbearers" (they don't use that term here) lowered the casket to them who set it in place in the hole dug about 6 ft deep. Lokadi's older sister was asked to grab a shovel and push in 3 scoops of dirt on top of the casket. Then the hard part was asking Ega's oldest daughter (Jizelle, 11) to do the same. Gut-wrenching. I was asked to be the third person to shovel. Once finished, we left. Ega had arrived, but was not permitted witness to the lowering of the casket into the ground. People around here say that often times, in states of drunkenness, the pagans will shout insults at the surviving spouse (i.e., "you should have done more," or "if we had never given her in marriage to you, then she'd be alive today.") So insensitive. So they kept Ega at a distance, inside the hut of one of Lokadi's uncles (her parents both passed away years ago).

It was a great Christian witness today...it was so good to stand beside many of my Christian brothers and sisters and watch them minister to Ega. Many wept with him. Many prayed for him. Many just sat and stared at the ground with him (that was me). An offering was taken up and that little bit was probably a huge blessing to a man who is in great need. I was proud to watch them work through some idiosyncrasies of discerning appropriate practices. It is difficult to walk through this with them, because I myself am an outsider. But each family has their traditions (albeit most likely created by pagan ancestors) and some of those traditions are still carried on by Christians, just not in the same way. In Ega's clan, they kill a goat, take two drops of its blood, putting one drop on each side of the casket. They say it is a sign of their clan. To other Christians from different clans, this is disturbingly too close to what the pagans might do (who would offer the goat as a sacrifice to an idol; Ega said in his case, it was to be killed and then eaten, while only taken a little bit of the blood to make the family's insignia, that's it). It was quite a feud trying to navigate that one. At hearing the Christians begin to balk at this, some of Lokadi's family began to threaten Ega and say that if he didn't allow it, then they could not take the body and that he would have to figure out where to bury it. Alot more complicated than I am making it sound. God helped us and in the end, no blood was used at all. We had agreed to make sure no Christians in their family were partcipating, while leaving them to do whatever they wanted. In the end, it was healthy for the Christians to wrestle through things like this. How to bury someone? What's the proper way to marry someone? What's the biblical way of presenting a child to the world? Discerning what pleases God in intense emotional moments like these are difficult for new believers (and the missionary as well).

Ega is doing OK, as best as can be expected. I believe the Kaiteme church (and others too) have rallied to him during this time of need. The baby Lael is doing well, too. Ega has chosen another nursing mother in a nearby village (interestingly named Lokadi as well, although they did not choose her because of her name) to help nurse the newborn baby girl. Kelly saw Lael today and said she looks good and healthy. Formula is another option here (although most women in the villages nurse; in their minds, formula's not as good and MUCH more expensive). Lael is well and is being well taken care of.

Thanks everyone for your comments and emails. Your comments are automatically emailed to me so it's nice to get notice every time once is posted on the blog. Your words give us strength, as well as your generosity.

- R