bitter and sweet

We started our day as a hearse driver.

Little Santinho, the young twin of whom we recently wrote died a couple of nights ago.  This was tough for us.  We have known him since birth  and have bounced him on our laps for countless hours during lessons.  Tough on us, but devastating for his parents.  They are penniless of course and we bought the coffin and paid  to get the body from the hospital (yes, apparently it requires payment). It was an interesting day.  These people are not members of the church and didn't want a funeral--but consider themselves closer to us than anyone else so he asked for our participation.  We arrived at the family home at 8 am and took a dozen people to the lumber yard to pick up the coffin, then, with the group mostly on their feet in the back of my pickup, we went to the hospital to wash and take possession of the body.

We brought the body back to the home where more family and friends were gathered and then began the hour of ritualistic wailing and keening.  I then delivered a simplified discourse on the purpose of life (and death) and the Plan--then they asked me to pray over them (and I can always do that). And then the crowed of about 60, following, the casket, walked to the cemetery in a procession.
 

It was a beautiful, but very hot, cloudless day today.  This picture from the middle of the crowd shows a bit of the color and culture of the group.  This scene is so typical of rural Quelimane.  We walk through streets like this every day.  It is a long long way from winter in Fairbanks, Alaska.

I dedicated the grave which is the first time that I have done that in Mozambique--every other burial that we have attended has been Catholic or traditional.

 From the grave site, we raced home with Julio and Paula, who are aunt and uncle of the deceased--and baptized them in our little water tank behind the church (which is incidentally, being retired from service hereafter).  We love Paula and Julio--having taught them now for about four or five months (and having finally succeeded in marrying them last week).  Paula reads, but Julio really doesn't.  They study the Gospel together however and it seems to work.  They have memories that do not extend beyond ten minutes ago however, so it was very difficult getting them to retain concepts and principles that we taught.  We finally turned to "flashcards" and games of "Concentration" which we created for them to help the learn.  Unmitigated success I would not call it, but they made progress.  In the end, they were prepared (prepared has never meant remembering every concept and doctrine). and we had a beautiful baptismal service--begun in traditional Mozambican fashion--an hour and a half late.

Water had leaked from the tank so the level was quite low, changing the physics of immersion--and in performing the baptism, I slipped and nearly required rescue.

Paula and Julio invited their friends Jojo and Sonia (and five children) to the service today.  We have been teaching them for a few weeks now and they are the closest thing to a perfectly prepared family we have yet found.  As always, getting the 40 dollars necessary for marriage is the biggest impediment to progress.  

Debra and Debra spent a lot of quality bonding time together today as we drove around on our funeral tasks.

This picture is completely unrelated to the rest of the post but we thought it cute.  This young Mozambican father is probably on his way to a bicycle safety class.

We will take a few days break from Quelimane starting tomorrow after church services--heading to South Africa for a few days to accompany a couple to the temple in Johannesburg.  We trust it will be a great experience for them and for us (and we admit to being a bit excited about seeing civilization for a bit and Debbie is excited to see a chiropractor and buy some hair dye.