Abraham's burial

Yesterday early morning I got a call from Amecet (the baby shelter). The parents of Lazaro and Abraham brought Abraham (11 month old with hydrocephalus due to osteogenesis imperfecta- see 4/14 and 4/16 ) because he had seizures in the night. They were asking for Amecet to give them medicine to make him better. They called me because I've been visiting them often. When I arrived there his breathing was very irregular and he was pretty much unresponsive. We had the very hard conversation that there is nothing that can be done and the best thing was to take him home and hold him and let him know he is loved. I went to visit them in the village in the early afternoon with Angelina and found that he had already died. Today was the burial. Here are a few pictures I took with his family's permission.

The girl in the green dress is Lazaro's older sister. She is 14 and also affected by the disease but is very high functioning. She is unable to stand/walk but attends school and works as hard as the rest of the family. She seemed hardest hit by his death. She was inconsolable when they laid him in the ground. Please be praying for her and her mother and the rest of the family that when I go back next week that they would be receptive to hearing that there is hope. That they can see him again in heaven in his perfect body. That Jesus Christ died so that death is not the final end and life doesn't just suck and then you die. (which is a commonly held belief here.) 

 

The men sit seperately from the women. The whole community attends because, as it was explained to me “today it is another but tomorrow it will be you.” There is a lot of work that goes into a burial. The bush needs to be cleared from large patches of shade. A coffin needs to be made. Chairs and benches gathered from other homes. A deep hole dug. The work is shared. Everyone brings food or water or firewood and at the end of the day they all eat together.