Sunday morning we woke to the ringing of our phone. “Zute is dead.”
Our family is very attached to many of the young kids in this family. Esther, the mom/grandma, gets several hugs from our girls per week minimally. When we first moved here Annika said, “It was worth all the hassle of us moving to Marabá just to see Jesus touch this family.”
Zute is a cute, 19 year old neighbour girl who has three small children. Her oldest just turned four in December.
She and her brother came over in the pouring rain on Wednesday night to borrow our ladder to fix their roof. On Saturday she and her sister went out partying. Her sister came home. Zute was on a motorcycle that missed a corner and hit a brick wall in the early hours of Sunday morning. Alcohol and drugs are the two big killers here. This is the second young mom in our neighborhood who has died and left behind small children from drunken motorcycle accidents in just the last few months.
We got up, made coffee, had devotions and walked over to visit our neighbours. They were in shock. These parents have 16 children, mostly daughters. Several of these girls left their “husbands” late last year and moved back home. There are eight grandchildren under four in the little brick house, and daughters, boyfriends and husbands everywhere. Zute’s body arrived at 4 p.m. They put the casket in the tiny living room and kept it open as long as they could. Everyone stayed up all night grieving as is the custom here. Zute’s tiniest baby is Vivia. Deanna brought her home for the day while everyone was in shock. Later in the afternoon we went back to visit again. As I was sitting beside one of the guys he told me, “I am thinking about my life. I am a backslidden christian. What if that had been me? She was standing right here last night, so happy and full of life.” I invited him to come over and talk sometime. Another guy told Deanna, “This could have been any one of us.”
Deanna and Annika went to the burial. They planned to bring the parents in the car while the funeral home provided a large bus for the rest of family. At the last minute the dad started weeping and could not go. Then the mom could not go. They stayed home with the babies while the rest of the crew went to the cemetery. At the gravesite no one was sure what to do. Deanna offered to pray and then most joined in to say the Lord’s Prayer. After she got home Deanna and Bella made them a huge pot of soup. This family is rich in some ways and poor in others. The soup was a huge hit with everyone. The dad had just returned from the jungle. He went into his bedroom where he had stored a big sack of Brazil nuts. He gave us a bag full of the raw nuts in appreciation for the soup. Then the mom and dad gathered most of the family in the living room and asked Deanna to pray a blessing over them.
The mom says that if her husband becomes a Christian, within the next month she will become a Christian. Apparently she has said this for years. His name is Valdimar. Her name is Esther.
It sounds like your family is being a great blessing in Marabá. May He continue to bless you so you can be a blessing. With love, Rena
It’s so good that you are there, Rick. Your last entry talked about church planting and this entry is an illustration of church planting. So well done. –tim