Encouragement from the Brethren

Praying together. 

I had written in the last blog that Every first Saturday of the month we gather with fellow missionaries. We share prayer items and do a DBS with a scripture passage in the Bible. We also give a small fee so that we can eat a meal and fellowship afterwards. As the body of Christ there was a desire to celebrate when there is a baby born and come together to comfort when a family member passes away. Representatives came to our house to say they were sorry about my Mom passing away. This was so meaningful to me. It has been a little over 6 months since my Mom has "been promoted to glory". There are still waves of pain that come which catch me off guard. Recently I have started addressing envelopes to handwrite cards to our loved one ( if you would like one- please send me your address: bekahmena@yahoo.com) I was going through my list and came across My Mom's. I realized I had to delete her name off and it was as if I was deleting her from the existence of earth. The last postcards we sent out was last year in July, she was alive. What a drastic change- how fleeting our time is, just a vapor. 

When I was hanging out with My Mom the last few weeks she had- the missionaries here were very much aware of what we were going through and sent their voices of prayers through WhatsApp. I thanked them for that encouragement and bond across the ocean. They let me talk through the different take aways I had during that time.

1) My Mom (who was 60) and her Mom (who is 90) defied the restrictions of not touching because of COVID. My Mom was able to kiss the palm of my grandmother even though all the nursing home workers were shouting- "No! Stop!" That was the last time they were to see each other- and there was no regrets.

2) Even through the pain my Mom still asked every person who she came in contact with how they were. Then she proceeded to tell them about her best friend Jesus. If she could do this (despite having terminal stomach cancer) I can absolutely do this also.

3) My Mom requested that we don't talk all about her during her funeral- but instead have the focus be about Christ. She said that He was her favorite person to talk about so why should it be any different when she passed away. 

4) After Moms body was buried in the ground my siblings, Jason and I cleaned out my Moms apartment. Every single item reminded us of her. We wanted to save it all but realized she didn't care at all if we through a lot of it away. You don't need any of this "stuff" in eternal life. 

When I finished the different missionaries told me of their own loss of family members and there time of the grieving process. None of them were without. All understood the emotions of facing a tragedy but holding onto God's promise as believers. We sang some songs of worship and praise and closed out the time in prayer. I received some money that was collected and we got to take a picture to make it all official- Kenya style. I am so blessed by so many different relationships that God has given.

Receiving the contribution 

The group that came to comfort us.