This year is going to be full of unexpected moments. Our ministry could change at a moment’s notice; God could completely wreck our understanding of things or our 10-hour bus ride could turn into a 22-hour bus ride (another story for another time.) The trick is to find his gifts in those unexpected moments.
Wow, I can’t believe that month one has already come to a close. It may have only been a month, but the Lord is already teaching me so much about him and about myself.
One of our last days in Xenecoj, German, our host, shared that a widow had passed away and the wake was that morning. Even though it was a widow that we had not gotten the chance to meet, German wanted us to go with him to drop off some food for the widow’s family.
I had mixed feelings about attending local funerals and wakes. Every time we walked in heads would turn, and I felt like we were a distraction. Whenever we would walk into a room, people would immediately run and go get chair for us to sit with them. I felt like they were the ones serving us at a time when we should be the ones serving them.
God works and shows us things in the most interesting ways.
That day we walked up to the wake and everything was “normal,” but as soon as we got there, heads started turning and people rushed around finding chairs for all nine of us. At first we just sat down; I tried to be quiet and not take away from the moment. Then, they shared that it is tradition to walk up to the casket and pray over the deceased. Now I’ll be honest, I kinda froze. I wasn’t sure what to do or what to pray for, but I walked up there and prayed for her and her family.
After we’d been there for a little while we stepped outside. I figured we were waiting on German; he had been talking with the family. Then, German came up to us and said that the widow’s son would love for us to stay for lunch. We had about two hours till lunch and they invited us to join them and help make wreaths for the funeral. I sat in a circle with my team, building wreaths, talking about life, death, and who knows what else.
I thought that it was going to be awkward, but I ended up having a great time. After lunch we left for a little while, but would come back later in the afternoon for the funeral. That’s when God was gonna throw us all for a loop.
We came back to the house later that afternoon and hung back until it was time for us to proceed to the church. German came up and told us that the son would like for us to be the pallbearers for the first few blocks to the church. We were all stunned. I don’t think any of us had every carried a casket before, much less one of someone we’d never met before. But German explained that the son really wanted us to. He felt honored that even though we did not know him or his mother that we would spend our day with them, being with them during this time.
I hadn’t thought about it that way. I had always viewed our presence in those situations as a distraction, but God was seeing something completely different. It’s easy to get caught up in our own perspective and be blind to the work that God is doing.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18
