Dear Friends and Family,

Last night, Glen and I spent several hours with the community at the home of our hospital chaplain, Pastor Sakweno.  He returned from Fatundu yesterday to tell his children that their mother had died.  In addition to a short service, local choirs sang in their yard well into the night.  Many concerned friends laid out their sleeping mats, spending all night comforting and supporting the family.  It's been a long week.

Pastor Sakweno's wife, our kindergarten teacher, and a recent Women's School graduate, was filling in for her husband at the hospital's morning chapel service one recent morning when she inexplicably collapsed.   Pastor Sakweno was on the chapel preaching schedule for the main mission service that day.   Because of a conflict in scheduling, his wife insisted on taking his place at the hospital chapel service.  So, both Pastor Sakweno and his wife were preaching that morning!  After completing her message, "In difficult times, don't abandon Jesus," Mama Sakweno sat down for the offering, and collapsed.  (Pastor Sakweno later found her notes in her Bible.)

For four days she received medical care at our hospital, but remained nearly unresponsive with total paralysis on one side.  Her parents arrived to help, but were immediately accused by Kikongo's youth of having caused her sudden illness through witchcraft.  It didn't take long for her parents to decide that neither was their daughter improving, nor their security situation very healthy, so they packed up and left -- with their daughter.  In Congo, although a woman may be married to her husband for many years, in the end, her uncles and parents continue to determine her future.  In Mama Sakweno's case, her family deemed sorcery was the cause of her illness, and sorcery her only hope for recovery - something which Pastor Sakweno could not agree to participate in.  He explained that as the hospital chaplain, he is always encouraging people to abandon sorcery.   He could not accept the inconsistency of entering into sorcery and at the same time being a pastor.    While his wife was in her parent's car, Pastor Sakweno spent the nights in his father's village on one side of the river, crossing over to the other side each day to see Mama Sakweno.

After five days with her parents, Mama Sakweno died.  The youth in her parents' town were outraged.  How could her father kill his child like that?  Having been beaten and run out of his home village some years before for a death, this time Mama Sakwno's father fled to the police for protection.  Pastor Sakweno was left alone with the body of his wife.  Not knowing how else to proceed, he carried the body across the river to his village,  (which is still about 25 km from Kikongo) for mourning and burial.

We received word at Kikongo the same day.  Women immediately stopped what they were doing, and set out on foot, walking into the night to reach Pastor Sakweno's village.  Before dawn, on Saturday, numbers of men and women from Kikongo were on the road to join them.  It seemed that everybody was looking for a way to go.  Rather than have me walk four hours to the village and four hours back in one day, Glen arranged for some young men to paddle me at least one way downriver at sunrise.

My "chauffeurs" were strong.  We made it downriver in the cool of the morning in just two and a half hours.  A short hike up to the village revealed just a handful of mourners, almost all from Kikongo.  All day mourners continued to arrive.  Singers and dancers from various villages also came, bringing a variety of instruments hooked up to loudspeakers.  Before long, there were four groups all facing each other singing and dancing in a sort of scratchy loudspeaker duel.  It was impossible to hear.  Thanks to the the lumber mill having operated during the Easter break, there was lumber available for a coffin.  While its construction was being completed underneath one of the large trees, questions began to be asked about the impending burial.

In their tradition, Mama Sakweno's family buries their child.  A messenger went back and forth across the river between the two families to decide where Mama Sakweno should be buried.  While the discussion was taking place, Pastor Sakweno thanked us for coming and told the Kikongo women to return home.    I joined a number of women on the long walk back to Kikongo.    By nightfall, the body was again at the river's edge waiting to be taken once more to the father's house.  Confusion reigned.  The youth from both sides of the river were angered by their elder's waffling decisions and refused to cross the body.  Finally, a friend used a small canoe to take the body across the river to the parent's home for the night.

Meanwhile, the road back to Kikongo was full of mourners trying to get home before nightfall, me included.  In our group of around 10 women, two were carrying hefty babies who had already made the four-hour walk on their mother's backs the night before.  None too pleased to be confined again the fussy babies were shared from back to back, and finally carried into Kikongo on motorcycles that were ferrying people to and fro from the funeral.  As the day began to wear to a close and it looked as if night might catch us before we reached home, our pace setters set up a ferocious pace!  For the last hour and a half, we were almost running.  The Lord was good to us.  We got home with still enough daylight to see by -- and, unlike many of my most recent village adventures, it didn't rain.

Mama Sakweno was finally buried on her father's side of the river the morning after we left. The family allowed a pastor to be present at the burial.  Pastor Masala of the pastoral school stood by his colleague throughout the  ordeal.   Please pray for Pastor Sakweno and his children as they adjust to this big change in their lives.  Pray that they would not lose their focus. Pray for me also as I try to find the right person to fill Mama Sakweno's shoes in our kindergarten program.

Sincerely,

Rita