Losses

Death is ever-present in our community. Seldom does a week go by without word of the death of someone associated with Namwianga or a family member of one of the workers. Still, we never get used to these losses. This week was especially hard.

A young boy who lived in a compound on mission property died on Wednesday. He was seen at our clinic last week and then transferred to Kalomo Hospital where he died a few days later.

Thursday one of the babies at The Haven died--an eight-month-old with pneumonia. Michelle Drew, an American nurse practitioner who is doing a rotation at the clinic, worked tirelessly to try to save him. She and Kathi Merritt were taking him to Macha, the nearest fully equipped hospital, when he died in Michele's arms.

The Zambians accept that life is fragile and uncertain. The songs they sing reflect this understanding and their longing for God's comfort. We join them in singing "This world is not my home" and "Farther along we'll know all about it" and "Some glad morning when this life is o'er." It occurs to me that we hadn't sung those songs very much in recent years in the US. In fact, we didn't spend much time contemplating heaven and the uncertainty of life when we were busy with our comfortable, affluent lifestyle. The losses of this week serve to remind us that we are, indeed, just passing through on a journey to a much better destination.

A final observation: We were coming back from Choma on Friday when we met the funeral procession for the young boy. It was quite a contrast to our experiences with funeral processions in the US. The lead vehicle was a small yellow pickup with a camper shell. The rest of the vehicles included a sedan or two, a couple of motorbikes, and three large trucks with people hanging off all sides as they traveled through the roiling dust.