Death And Life

(I'd just like to add a little note that this is my 500th post. So, that's pretty exciting for me, I can still clearly recall my 100th!)

This has been week of funerals and births. On Tuesday, the recently retired pastor of the CNI (Church of North India) church in our city died. He had been in the hospital for several days and died from complications from Diabetes. His service was Tuesday afternoon. It was in the CNI church and it was totally in the local language which I do not speak nor understand well. Where we were seated we couldn't see the front where all the "action" was happening and when they started to put garlands on his body we slipped out. Mainly because we spent most of the hour just trying to keep our eyes open. I went ready to cry, but it was a pretty dry funeral.

On Thursday we got news that the husband of one of our teachers died. He was a young man in his thirties with 2 young boys. He had been sick for a very long time. He was an alcoholic. We went flying through the city on motorcycles to the teacher's house because the body was being buried in another village and these things need to be done very quickly over here. We missed meeting our teacher, she had already left for the village. The body (wrapped - he had Hepatitis) was still there and we looked at it, our pastor prayed, and off they went.

By Friday we got news that a co-worker's wife who is 7 1/2 months pregnant was admitted in the hospital because she was losing some amniotic fluid. She's on bed rest for a week.

And then early Saturday morning my newest niece, Juliana, was born.

And through it all I didn't shed a tear. A new record for me.