Funerals and Grief

The thunder was cracking overhead and the rain was coming down loudly on the mabati (tin) roof. The dreary weather found me sitting in a humble home in Mitumba slum yesterday afternoon. I had come with Violet and Rodgers, George, and Jacqueline, some of the teachers, to pray with Vincent’s family. This is the family that lost their eldest daughter, Rebecca, at a mere 21 years of age, due to being electrocuted by a live wire.

I don’t know what I expected to find. Wailing? Tears of anguish and grief? Torn clothes? Weeping? I found none of those things, however. Instead, I found myself being welcomed into their dark, inconceivably small home, and a place made on the sofa for me to sit down. I found a beautiful woman, a mother, with sad eyes, clasping her hands in front of her, looking lost, and yet smiling at us at the same time. Appreciative that we had come to visit and pray with them.

We also came to present some money to them that had been raised on behalf of the youth, the church, the teachers, us, and a few other people. Money that will be used for the funeral expenses, and the costs of bringing the body of their daughter up-country to lay her to rest. She passed away almost two weeks ago. They have still not had the funeral because the costs are so high, and for a family living in a slum, it is an insurmountable task to come up with that kind of money. So they wait. They try to get the money. People fundraise. Communities come together. And the money comes in, slowly by slowly. They are travelling up-country to Kisii, which means that they have to hire a vehicle to transport the body, plus raise all the money for all of the relatives to travel that distance. And that’s not considering food and everything else needed for the funeral. It is a terrible worry that comes hand-in-hand with dealing with the death of a loved one.
I have been told that sometimes the funerals don’t happen for three months. Three months after a husband, father, daughter, mother…someone they love…dies and they can finally put them to rest and try to move on with their lives. Three months of worry. Three months of only one thing on their mind. Three months of continual grief. Three months of attempting to raise enough money to bury their dead. It is so sad.

We thank God that Vincent’s family was able to raise all the money they needed, and are travelling to Kisii today to have the funeral.

After our time of praying with the family, we left the house and walked through a maze of small dwellings, walking in the rain, dodging sewer waste flowing freely, stepping over unknown garbage, over a rickety foot bridge made of sticks, ducking under laundry hanging to dry, but was now getting wet all over again with the coming of the rain, passed little babies wearing next to nothing and crawling around in the dirt and mud, greeted mamas sitting in the doorways of their houses….all the while trying not to slip and fall on the slippery rocks and uneven trails.

What a place.

Violet said something while we were sitting in Vincent’s mother’s home that stuck with me… “All we can do is leave them in the hands of the Almighty God. We can pray and encourage them, then we just have to leave them with the Lord.” This is true, and yet it is still so hard. We just know that they are going to be going through some terrible grief today and for the next few days, weeks, months, and pray for God to sustain them, and to reveal Himself to them.

God is good. We know He is.

Something else happened in Mitumba on Tuesday night. Lately, there has been a shortage of water in Mitumba. So when there is water, people will be lining up to get as much water as they can, while they have the chance. So on Tuesday night, a mother was going to go get water. She left her sleeping baby (about 1 year old) in the house, with a kerosene lantern burning. When she returned with her containers full, she found that her baby had woken up, crawled over, and must have tipped the lantern, which caught fire. The baby had burned to death before the mother even got back to her house.

Tragedies. Senseless tragedies. Oh how we ache for these people. Life is so hard.