I was asked to go to a graveside service yesterday in between church services. I preached/ taught during the first service and Danielle (my teammate) was going to preach the second service. We were eating lunch and they asked if we would go. I am willing to do whatever our ministry contact asks so I immediately said yes. We walked about 15 minutes to an overgrown field with sparse concrete slabs protecting the graves of only those who could afford it, otherwise there was only a pile of dirt with a hand-painted wooden cross as decoration and memorial. I was by far not the only person that came. There were probably 250 people scattered throughout this field with the epicenter of the people being around the open grave of this man whom still today I don’t know his name. I was positioned far enough away that I had no way of seeing anything really, I could see the crowd of people around the grave and hear the singing when the sang.
Let me stop here and say that I mean no disrespect to this man or his family or to Tanzania but I believe that the Holy Spirit was talking to me and I want to share it with you. I had a conversation with my translator while the service, or what I assume was a service, was going on. I couldn’t see or hear anyone actually speaking. I asked why so many people came to just sit and watch and not really even take part or console the family. He said that it was a prestige thing here in Tanzania. He said that if only few people come then everyone else in the village will assume that this person was mean and didn’t do anything with their life. He then said that it also added prestige because Danielle, Janee, and myself came because we were white. Just the fact that we were white and showed up at this graveside gave this family prestige in the eyes of the others that lived in the villages.
While I was sitting there the Holy spirit asked me a question. What makes you have prestige when you die? Is it the people that come to your graveside. Is it how many foreigners you know? Is it how nice you were when you were alive? I honestly haven’t fully decided the answer. There was a man at my church that recently passed away without any warning. He was such a man of God and I wish that I had been closer to him to absorb some of his knowledge. It says that in Titus 2 that the older generation of both men and women are called to show the younger generation the way. Everybody knows the saying that “you should learn from your mistakes”. Well I think the point of Titus is that we get to learn from the generation before us’ mistakes. We don’t have to make them. We just have to listen and learn the lessons that have already been learned.
At this point I have about 1 1/2 months left before I come back to American soil and knowing that things are going to be different than when I left is honestly a little odd. I know what God has planned for me next. I guess just the circumstances of the last few weeks culminating with me going to a graveside yesterday just to bring prestige has caused me to ask the question. What will I be remembered for? I want to be a violent man of God that brings the kingdom of God by force. (Matthew 11:12) That is what I am called to.
I love you all,
Cody
