October 22, 2015

Unexpected events. Thursday morning we received the news that the father of Jose Manuel, who was baptized here last July passed away.  We had been praying for Jose’s father, as his health had been declining.  He was 86.  So, our plans for the day changed.  Dwaine went with Cesar to study with Mario, who lives near the waterfalls.  I stayed home to prepare for the ladies’ class in Santa Telca on Saturday.  I was trying to develop a power point lesson with pictures of people I had mentored through the years.  That was challenge in that I have tons of pictures to review and that I have done little in the way of power point through the years.  I had written my lesson while we were in the States, but I also wanted to review all the scriptures in Spanish.  It was good to have a little time to work on this.  When the guys returned, we had planned to go to study with Sara, but decided we had better leave to go to the ‘visitation’ for Jose’s father before it was late in the day.  Both Cesar and we drove with a car full.  We first went to Ahuachapán to drop Eliza and Abi by Osvaldo’s and Luz Elena’s.  Then, we headed out of town.  The body was at the home of the man who died.  Once we turned off the main road, we continued down a dirt road that became smaller and smaller.  Finally, after about 40 minutes we arrived at their home.  The mayor’s office had provided a very small wooden coffin and it was on small iron supports in the house.  The ‘visitation’ is called a vela, meaning candle, because there were four large candles around the coffin.  We sat for about an hour and visited some with family. Words cannot describe the scene, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to take a photo.  At four, we had a service.  Arnoldo led singing and Cesar preached a sermon.  The man was a brother and we later learned that the family had Sunday services in their home with about 10 people meeting there each Sunday.  We also later learned that different groups of people visited that day and there were actually 3 different services held.  The last was about 11 o’clock that night.  We were trying to head out before night fall so we would not have to make the drive out after dark.  When we left, Jose was just arriving and he had to back his truck out for about a mile because the road was more the size of a trial and there was not room for two way traffic.  Dwaine said the last ‘wake’ he had been to in a home was that of his father, some 40 years ago.  One thing I was thankful for as we heard stories of this man’s great faith was that he lived to know that his son, Jose, was baptized and growing in his own faith.  I know that was a blessing to him. We got home close to 8. Thankfully, it did not rain the whole trip.  As a side note, we have now been back for a month from our trip home to the States.  Dwaine had been working hard to reach a goal of losing 10 pounds his first month back and he achieved that goal!  Well, for me, I achieved my goal too, but my sights were only half that of Dwaine’s!