None of us could have imagined what would happen.  Last month when our village landlord asked permission to put his mother's casket in the living room of our village house during the wake and the day of her funeral, we really had only one option.  We simply had to say "yes".  But even though we didn't know how it would turn out, God did, and he protected us at every turn in the road.

You may recall that Guy's father-in-law was buried in another village on the same day as our landlord's mother's burial. It was that funeral that kept us from being in the village of Eyene at that time.  And how very, very glad we are that God kept us far away from the event!

Ndzana Damien shared with us that it was a very large wake and an even larger funeral.  Andrea, our landlord, approached him at the last minute with a desperate plea.  Could he please use our house as sleeping quarters for some of the more prestigious family members who were coming back to the village for this occasion.  First he wanted access to Jim's tool room.  Damien wisely told him that he had never been given access to that room.  Even when Andrea demanded that he give him the key, Damien stood up to him and protected Jim's tools.  Next he wanted to use one of the bedrooms as a place to store the incredibly large quantity of alcohol that the family had purchased for the event.  Damien unlocked our small kitchen and let them use that space.  We had warned him that this request would be coming his way and had asked him to empty the room of our stove, gas bottle, metal storage boxes containing dishes, silverware, glasses, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and etc.  Andre's brother tried to pressure Damien into simply turning the entire house over to them so they could do whatever they wanted.  By God's grace, Damien was able to resist the enormous pressure put on him  from every quarter.  Eventually he told Andrea that he would unlock Guy's bedroom with the condition that Andrea himself sleep in that room with whoever else he wanted to share the space with.  And he finally gave permission for them to bring their own mats into the living room and line the relatives up like cord wood on the floor.  

Fortunately Damien's wife came out to the village for the three most critical nights.   At nine o'clock each night she went to bed in his very crowded room where all our things had been stored.  Five hours later she woke up and took over being the guard of the house while Damien slept for a handful of hours.  As a result of their vigilance, only one mop cloth was stolen.   Since mop cloths are not part of American culture, you may not realize that this is a very minor thing indeed. 

Another little detail that Andrea neglected to tell any of us ahead of time was that their tradition required that they stay together for eight nights after the burial.  On that eighth night they had some kind of ritual for the deceased.  This is all part of Manguisa traditional religion.  What this meant was that our village house was overflowing with relatives for well over a week.  It was not safe for Damien to return to his family in Yaounde until after the last person moved out.  Imagine if Jim and I had been there!  How we praise God that He spared us from this adventure.

But in among all the chaos and confusion of that time, God was at work.  Damien and his wife had numerous opportunities to talk one on one with many of the several thousand people who were there.  They gave gospel tracts and scripture portions to well over 250 people who expressed an interest.  In fact people were coming to them asking for tracts.  Amazingly, not one single tract was thrown away.  And so we are asking the God of the Impossible to transform hearts, as only He is able to do.  It became abundantly clear to Damien and his wife that these people desperately need the Lord.  Night after night large numbers of them drank themselves into oblivion as they worshiped the false god of their ancestors.  We never question why we are here.  It's in our face every day.  People need the Lord!