Mourning from Afar

Megan & Grandad

On Saturday morning we got the news that Megan’s grandfather had passed away.  While this of course was sad news, there were many things to be thankful for in his passing. He went relatively quickly.  He had lived a long, full life of 96 years. He was a man of God who had shined light into the darkness. He loved and was loved by all his family. His ministry, thoughts, art and poetry have effected many. He will be missed, but also well remembered.  We are so thankful for his life and for the opportunity we had to know him.

Now this is actually the first death of a family member that we have had since we’ve been on the islands and we have been struck by the thought— how do we mourn here? In much of our lives we look to make our actions understandable to islanders.  In many cases we do things as islanders would do but when we choose not to, we usually try to have a reason or explanation ready in case someone asks.  Sometimes we choose to do things in a “foreign” way for our own sanity or because we have misgivings about the “island” way of doing things… sometimes because we fear it is wrong or hurtful or we are concerned about the implications it has on our beliefs or worldview.

Obviously it is always natural to default to our American way of doing things, but what is the American way of mourning? We have very few rules that we follow. People can mourn in very different ways in the US and no one would think twice about it. On the islands, however, there are many rules and guidelines for mourning. Close female family members stay inside the home for either 3, 7 or 40 days (depending on the relationship). Forty days is the time period of official mourning. It is during this time that people will visit the grieving family, offer condolences and in which the family will have different events for the dead loved one.

Now many island families live in close proximity— often multiple generations can be found within a block of each other, if not the same house. So the grieving process is something done at home with the family and everyone working together to make the events and special prayers happen.

So the question is— should we mourn like islanders? What does it all mean? Obviously our thoughts and beliefs about death are very different.  As soon as we got the news, I went outside and told our neighbor, Twama, who lives directly downstairs (technically we share a two-story house with her family).  She told me that if a family member dies abroad then the expectation that most of the things will happen abroad where the burial happens. But even if the body isn’t being brought back to the islands for burial, the grieving person on the islands would still go into mourning on the islands and would often host a prayer event, the special days being the first day, the third day, the seventh day and the 40th day.  She even went so far as to suggest that her husband could go find a local prayer man that we could hire to do a prayer at our house, even that day if desired.  I thanked her but also used this suggestion as an opportunity to remind her that we believe different things. We don’t need to pray our loved one into heaven. We know he’s there already. If we held an event it would be about remembering the things God did in and through his life, for thanking God for his life and for perhaps praying for those that have been left behind.

Kids & sunset

Now usually we are not naturally event-organizers— we never volunteer for the party-planner role, but in this case we felt like doing some kind of event would be appropriate both for remembering Grandad and also for our testimony on the islands. We decided to consult an islander who shares our beliefs. She understands the value of making our actions understandable to our neighbors while at the same time challenging the status quo beliefs and rules. She gave some good insights into how the typical island event could be changed to reflect our different beliefs and what would be good to include. She also relieved some of the pressure to do something by the seventh day, by highlighting that all the counting of days happens after burial, not after death. On the islands, burial is always right away, so this distinction usually doesn’t matter, but with deaths abroad this becomes significant.  In our case, it buys us some time as no one on the islands would do an event until the burial had happened.  Megan has opted to stay at home for these first three days as an acknowledgement that we are not unaffected by the death of our loved ones.  In the mean time, we are thinking and praying about what an island event in Grandad’s memory will look like.  Don’t worry, we’ll tell you about it once we figure it all out.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful for Grandad’s life and that his death was not drawn-out. We are thankful that Megan’s mom was able to make it in time to be with her siblings and mother before he died. Ma Imani has made it back to the islands! Thank you for praying. Her surgery and recovery went well and she only ended up being gone for 2.5 weeks!. (Now we hope that she’ll come back to Clove Island sometime soon!) Our team’s guest has continued to be a wonderful sport, going to lots of different events and participating in team life— we pray her final week goes well and that she learns a lot.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for Megan’s grandmother who lost her husband of 75 years (their anniversary was in just a couple weeks). They had still been living in their own home. Pray for everyone as they make decisions for her and for all the logistics of the coming weeks. Pray for us as we think of the memorial event we will do here— that it could be a blessing to brothers and sisters and other island friends. An island sister recently had hot oil splash into her eye— thankfully it seems to be healing well, but please pray for her recovery. We continue to pray for our teammates that have returned home that they would be finding good community to come around them. Our family has been hit by a tummy bug— days into it and many of us are still struggling with nausea and fatigue.  Pray that our tummies would calm and that we’d get our energy back. The kids will most likely start local school on the 24th, pray for them, all of them have changes this year that they are nervous about. Pray for calm spirits and for easy transitions back to the school routines. Pray for us as we ponder how to balance homeschool and local school without wearing our kids out.  The translation project hopes to complete consultant checking the first book in the next couple months— pray for that whole process!