Friday, August 21, 2009

A BAGANDA FUNERAL



You may or may not know that Christina and I visit Mulago Hospital(the national referral hospital) every Wednesday, and we have witnessed God doing amazing things in the hearts of many people there.
We go with a young pastor friend from Kawempe named Deon who serves as our translator, and is a great guy. When we arrived there this past Wednesday the 19th of August, Deon told us that his uncle had been brought there the day before and was very sick. We walked into the ward where he was with his wife and two grown sons and everyone was visibly upset, Paul was rapidly going down hill, he was unconscious and having seizures, and as normal, there was nothing being done to help him. We tried to comfort the family and we prayed with the family and Christina held and comforted his wife while she cried. A nurse came and said that they wanted to move him upstairs to a different ward, so I and the eldest son lifted Paul onto a gurney and rolled him up to another ward, and at that time we decided that we should go so the family could get him situated. Shortly thereafter, we received the call that Paul had died. Deon asked if I could please go with him to their village the next day for the burial.
Yesterday morning I picked up my good friend and co-laborer, Joseph Essiana and we went to Kawempe and got Deon and headed out to the village. I believe that his entire clan was there, he was a well respected and loved man. I was not asked to conduct the service,
but I was asked to speak to the people twice, it was a great honor. The service and burial lasted about five hours, during that time I visited with alot of the elders of the family, I visited with the men that volunteered to dig the grave, and I prayed with the widow.
The grave was very interesting, after they dug down about four feet, they lined it with bricks and mortored over the bricks, basically making a concrete vault for the casket. The most special part for me was when I learned that Paul had prayed to receive Jesus, last month! After the burial, we all walked back to the house for the installation service of the leader of the family. Paul's heir was his eldest son who is also named
Paul. I was asked to offer some words of encouragement,
so one of the things that I told him
was to not only be a good leader for the family, but most importantly be a follower of Jesus, I then gave him a Bible. I believe that this will be a day
that I won't soon forget and am very grateful to have been invited to be a part of this family and to be able to share the love of Jesus with them.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! We could learn a lot from their culture in regards to family importance and respect! How aweseom that you were able to be with the family throughout this. God loves you so much!
Rene'

Anonymous said...

Ditto to what Rene' just said. I know how deeply this has touched both of you. It touches me as well and makes me really appreciate all of my family and how great and wonderful our God is!
Melida

Jena Tager said...

I LOVE U GUYS! I WANT TO HAVE A SKYPE DATE GIVE ME A DAY AND TIME

I PRAISED GOD FOR U TWO TODAY.

Jena Tager said...

PLEASE GREET DEON FOR ME! AND TELL HIM THAT I AM PRAYING FERVANTLY

Anonymous said...

Suhanasoft is an Indian Web Design Company , web

development and Search Engine Optimization company providing low cost web design , web

development and Search Engine Optimization services for smaller and medium sized

businesses. Established in 2005, we have developed and designed more than 1000 websites

from around the world. Our quality and professional services has made us stand so f