ANOTHER FUNERAL

Last night I was enjoying a Karen Kingsley book when the phone rang. Alfonso, a man in our church, had died about 6:30 in the evening. A few minutes later the phone rang again - again for me! Someone else telling me. A few minutes later – you guessed it! So, I decided that if THREE people were calling to let me know, I really should get dressed and head for the funeral parlor. I got there at 10 and there were about 20 people from our church, plus a good number of other people. Here in Mexico, after a death, there is usually an all-night wake at the funeral parlor and sometimes in the home of the deceased.

Miguel, our elder, gave a small service where we sang and he gave a very good message. The daughter and wife of Alfonso were very friendly (they don’t come to our church) and almost begged us to have a meeting. Some of us then left, a few stayed a little while longer.

Alfonso came to our Jornada Espiritual office several years ago holding a World Cup tract. He said, "I found this on the ground and want to know more." He was hard to understand when he talked and we found out later that we was basically an alcoholic who had lost his family because of his habit. We asked Dan Kendal to study the Bible with him, he accepted the Lord and his life was turned around, but of course he suffered a lot of physical problems because of his drinking. One of his drinking buddies, Felipe, became a Christian because of Alfonso’s testimony to him and he’s part of our church, always with a huge smile and singing at the top of his lungs (off-key, but that's OK! We love hearing him sing!). Alfonso has been very ill for quite some time. His family came back and was caring for him – especially his daughter. A lot of the neighbors looked out for him too, as did several people from our church. His daughter is very grateful for all we’ve done for Alfonso and what we meant to him.

Hopefully no more funerals for awhile.