I Really Hate This

This is the third time I've had to do this over the last couple of years.  I hate writing obituaries.  A person’s life cannot be wrapped up even in a well written biography, much less in a few paragraphs on some website.  But it would be worse to say nothing.  So, like this pile of artifacts from his life that they put together at Do's funeral, this is my pile of things to say about him.

I’d like to tell you what I know about Do (pronounced like “dough”).  He had gotten about a 6th grade education in French and was able to use his understanding of the French alphabet to teach himself to read Dagara.  As one of the few in Didoro who could do this, he naturally became the leader of the church plant in Didoro in 2006.  


As he began to become more confident in his reading skills and more so in his calling, he started planting other churches.  He helped to plant churches in Yehoun, Yerfin, Sambion, and Penzaan.  He was the first Dagara evangelist to become a missionary to the Puguli tribe and he made Puguli converts in Banyere.   


He was not only an evangelist in this region but he was a leader in his family.  Like many new Christians, not everyone in his family was so gung ho about the faith, but rather than becoming an irritant in his family he had begun to draw more and more of them into the faith through his patient love for them.  


He was possibly the gentlest Dagara man I have ever met.  At leaders meetings where, because of his credentials he could have asserted himself, he was usually quiet unless called upon.  He will be missed by everyone who ever met him.

I'm finishing up my literacy training book, and I’ve decided I’m going to dedicate it to his memory.  The things he did with the little he knew still amaze me, and yet it is the kind of thing we are all called to do.  I’m dedicating the literacy training book to him, because our literacy course is not just a generic literacy course but a course with a purpose - that people will take their ability to read the Bible and share it.

The main reason I have a lump in my throat right now and tears running down my cheeks is not that his death is a defeat.  We can celebrate his new life, but still hurt at the separation from a friend.  But honestly that’s still not the main reason my hands are shaking as I write this.  The problem I have is that I don't know if I praised him enough to his face while he was alive.  I never even learned his last name.
  
He was a regular student of mine, but I poured so very little of my life into him compared to how much of his he poured into the kingdom.  I am so so grateful that God used a sometimes inconsiderate, and absent minded man like me to speak His good news in Nakar, and that He used Yawnbacere and Vie from Nakar to speak His good news to Nyinyime and that He used Domanyuoara and Eric from Nyinyime to reach the heart of this beautiful man.  You will be missed Do.  I’m sorry I wasn’t a better missionary.  I’m so glad you didn’t need me to be.  I’m so proud of you.  I will never take credit for the 30 plus villages among the Dagara that have received the gospel, as I know you would not have either.

I need to know that Do’s story means something to the Christian community outside of Dano.  Please tell me if his story has meant anything to you.  How many people have you met like him, willing to give everything for the kingdom?  Tell me what his accomplishments mean to you.  Come post comments on this blog and I promise I will write them down in Dagara and pass these messages on to his church and his family.