from death to life...

These days recently have been both busy and interesting for us. Life is always an adventure here and we are learning and experiencing new things almost everyday!. We celebrated our first Easter here. On Sunday morning we gathered with many foreigners in the city and had a time of worship and a short message, which fortunately for us, was in both the local language and in English so it doubled as language time for us! Also, many of the foreigners dressed up in their cultural outfits to celebrate the occasion, so I'm sure we were quite the sight! We were supposed to meet outside, but due to rain there was a last minute change to an indoor location. It was really a nice morning and although I had not wanted to dress up in my new outfit that morning, it did afford our team a chance to take a picture together while we were all in our outfits! Afterwards we enjoyed American-style hamburgers (with no crazy spices tucked into them), good conversation and opportunities to build new relationships with other families that are working in this city. There were no flowers, white dresses or Easter hats, but I would say it was a wonderful morning. Zeke could barely keep his eyes open on the short drive home after so much excitement.

Another thing that we have slowly been learning about since moving here is the deep and sordid history of these people. We have seen things on the news that are hard for us to understand, so we try and ask a lot of questions and see if we can glean some insights into the lives of people who have been through so much. Over the last few months we have seen story after story on tv of huge groups of coffins sitting together, each with a regional flag laid over it. Well, today there was a huge commotion in our city and we had seen more of these kinds of pictures in the news the night before, so we started asking some more questions. It turns out that during the late eighties when these people were being severely persecuted by the famous dictator of this country, that gas attacks, torture and imprisonment weren't the only things families endured. Soldiers would go out to villages, gather all of the people-- men, women, children, elderly-- and cart them out to a spot somewhere outside of town. Then they would force them to dig a large pit, put everyone inside and then bury them alive! We had heard some awful stories, but somehow they never cease to shock you! In recent times they have slowly been discovering these mass graves and are digging them up, doing their best to identify the people and then are giving them proper burials. What was happening in our city today was a procession of trucks coming through, each carrying a casket that held one of these victims. This particular procession carried 187 people. We were in class while they went through our city, but later we watched on the news as they went through a village south of us. I couldn't get over the line of truck after truck; all the people had flags and banners that they use for funeral processions. Many of the older woman were all in black and were hitting themselves as a sign of grieving. The men would wave their hands at each passing pick-up while others sang songs with their hands over their hearts. For many people these are family members that, I suspect, they thought they would never find. We recorded a small clip from the news broadcast we were watching.

As we learn about these things and the hopelessness these people have endured, our hope is that they can disover and experience, all the more, the riches, grace and blessings that come from God alone who through death brings life. Despite whatever people have been through, there is only one way to find that needed new life, and more than ever I long and pray for the day where we will see that discovery in our new home.