Memorial Service

Thursday morning, I woke up and started my day like anyother. Went for my jog down the road through the village and rice fields, said good morning to the neighbors, came home and made a cup of coffee to go with my devotions, had breakfast and ran off to class by 8:00. When I got to the school building I saw a river of blue uniforms breaking out of the front and side doors. When I made it to the teachers room they informed me that the small four-year-old daughter of one staff member that had been hospitalized the night before with a serious case of malaria had died in the night. Immediately the tears came and I made my way home to tell Kara and prepare for the memorial service in a few hours.

Kara and I walked in silence to the families house just down the road from the school and when we got there the whole place seemed so dark. The clouds began to roll in and the dust began to blow. The colorful clothing that usually seems so bright and cheerful had no color at all and seemed rather dull. After several minutes of sitting in silence outside the small hut I heard dreadful sobs coming from inside. Of course a mother would be crying for her dead daughter but when I went inside after it began to rain I went into a small bedroom where the mother sat on a bed next to a white sheet. When she pulled down the white sheet and revealed the beautiful face of her small daughter the sobs began again and instantly my vision became blury and I left the room to find my seat just outside the door. The sobbing continued with every visitor that passed into the room. It was a heartbreaking sob that brought tears to my eyes every time.

There had been silence for almost 30 minutes when suddenly a few gasping breaths came before another sorrowful sob and it wasn't just the mother but her eldest son had just returned from a nearby town. He had been studying in a town a few hours away and had just arrived to find his dead sister and mother in the bedroom. They cried together and between sobs she said, "Son, I'm so sorry. She asked for you to come every weekend to play with her and now..."

The stress of all the crying and screaming had worn me thin and I was starting to feel tired. After we had been at their house for three hours I looked through the bedroom door to find two men picking up the child and laying her in the wooden coffin that had been covered with black fabric. They laid flowers across the top and carried it outside to the front of the house where they had the memorial service. After the pastor said few words and prayed they showed her face one last time then nailed the coffin shut and carefully picked it up and carried it to the burial site. The mother rose from her chair quickly to run after her daughter, between the sobbing and gasping she seemed to scream for her daughter to come back. I didn't go to the burial and instead I made my way back home. This family is in great need of prayer right now as they have another daughter of 8 years who has been in bed for 5 days with the same serious case of malaria. I couldn't imagine another memorial service like that.