No better way to go…

As many of you may know, Erma, the woman that I had be living and working with over the past year and a quarter, passed away.  Here’s the email I sent out from her office account the morning of her passing.

“It is with great sadness, but inexplicable peace, that I report to all of you that this Easter morning around 8AM, Erma went to be with the Lord. She was walking up to the early morning Easter Service for the Mission Church and other surrounding churches at the top of a hill in Valle Tranquilo. On the way up, she had a heart attack and was not able to be resuscitated by the doctor, Pastor Avitia. As we kept saying, what better way and time for her to go than serving the Lord on the day we celebrate His resurrection and life. Please keep her family and friends and all the people that she has touched down here with her life in your prayers. What a great example she has been to all of us, serving the Lord to her dying day. I can hardly believe it’s true.”

Even though I had moved out from the foundation, I still saw Erma at least once a week either at the Mission Church or at our friend Hector’s church.  For Easter, Erma had offered to let Hector’s church use her bus to transport the congregation to Valle Tranquilo for the sunrise service.  I picked up my friend Carmen and met them down at the church.  As I loaded the bus, I saw Erma and greeted her with a smile and a handshake (she was sitting or else we would have hugged).  She seemed very happy that morning.  I remember that morning before I got there, I had kept praying that things would not be awkward between us.  God answered my prayer.  Anyways, once we arrived at Valle Tranquilo, I hurried up the mountain with some of the kids.  About 15 minutes later, I saw some unusual commotion with Victor, Hector, Pastor Avitia, and some other people.  I wondered what was going on, but was not too concerned.  Then Victor came over to me and in his broken English said, “Erma is dying.”  The way he said it, I thought I had misunderstood him.  I said, “What?”  “Erma is dying,” he answered.  But how could that be?  I had JUST seen her 15 minutes earlier and she was completely fine!  “Wait, what??” I tried to clarify.  “Erma is dying.  We need to go.”  When I saw the looks on some of the faces around me, I realized it was true.  The next thing I know one of the women came over to me and hugged me and was saying, “Se murio, se murio,” “She died, she died.”  I was unsure if she was dying or had already died, so I went over to where I saw some people (including Victor) loading into Hector’s van to drive down the hill.  They had confirmed that she had died.  I asked if there was anything I could do to help and they asked if I wanted to come with them.  So I jumped in the van as well.  As we headed down the hill and off the the mortuary where they had already driven Erma’s body, Victor said one thing I could do to help would be to go back to Erma’s house and start making calls to tell her family and then send out an email to all her contacts to inform them of what happened.  WOW.  Me??  Call her children and let them know that their mother has died??  It was really weird though, I kept feeling like I should be nervous, I should be trying to get out of that hefty responsibility, I should be trying to run away from this, but no.  God gave me an inexplicable peace and strength to suck it up and do it.

We arrived at the mortuary where my friend, Carmen, was sitting next to Erma’s body in the car in which she was driven to the mortuary.  I went over to comfort Carmen and hold her hand as she held Erma’s hand.  This part was a little scary for me.  I had never seen a dead person before, let alone someone I knew, but I knew I had to be there for Carmen.  We just stayed there for about a half an hour crying, holding hands, and talking about how this was the perfect day and perfect way for her to go.  A little while later, it was decided that there was nothing else Carmen and I could do there to help, so we headed back to Erma’s to start making calls.  I was having a difficult time getting a hold of anyone since it was Easter Sunday morning.  I finally got ahold of Michael, Erma’s grandson whom I’ve met, and told him the news.  He couldn’t believe it and even thought I was joking.  It was really sad, but I’m glad it was Michael, someone I knew, that I got to tell.  From there, he said that he would get ahold of his mom, Judy, and they would tell the rest of the family.  After all the family had been informed, I sent out the above message to the rest of Erma’s email contacts.  It was a long day, but Carmen stayed by my side all day and God gave me the strength and peace to get through it and to do what I need to and could do to help.

The following day, my wonderful friend, Hannah, volunteered to drive up to the states with me to go pick up Judy, Paul, Michael, and his fiancé, Renee.  On the way up, we found out that the funeral was going to be held THAT night at 6pm!  We got back to Erma’s house by 6:15pm.  Victor asked me to put a slideshow of pictures together for the service, which I did while Michael and Renee freshened up and we waited for Judy and Paul to arrive with Ed and Florence Greenwood (who just happened to be at the airport when I got there to help bring them all down).  Then I headed off to my place to change into something besides sweats and ran back to go with the family to the funeral.  We finally got there by 7pm, but fortunately hadn’t missed much (they were tried to hold things off at the church until the family got there). 

The following day was the other funeral service which was followed by the car procession to the burial site and then the burial.  The services were all so nice.  We all knew that Erma was with the Lord and that there was no better way or day for her to go.  She was with Jesus, rejoicing in heaven, how could we be sad about that?  We were just sad for ourselves, that we don’t get to have her with us anymore.  Many members from Hector’s church in Cardenas were bussed up to all the services.  This was very special for me.  Some of my favorite little kids were there to hug me and comfort me in this difficult time.  I would not have traded that for the world.  God strengthened me through them and through the hugs and comfort of my sweet friend, Melissa.  It was like they would pour into me and fill me up and that gave me the strength to pour into others and fill them up.  It was such a beautiful time for me.  I feel like I’ve grown up so much this past week.

She was a wonderful woman who had done wonderful things for the Lord.  She touched a lot of lives.  This has been very evident this past week.

Praise the Lord!  May this glorify His name.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Well, as many of you may already know, these past two weeks have brought many changes to my life here in Mexico.  It all started when God told me it was time to take a break from the Erma Fennell Foundation.  I’m not sure if this is just for a time or if it has been permanent, but I have indeed moved out of my lovely little house at Erma’s as of Tuesday, March 29th.  The Lord has blessed me, though, by there being no hard feelings between Erma and me, by giving me another place to live (Welcome Home Ministry, just across the main road from Erma’s) while I finish out the school year with Anthonie and figure out what God has next for me, and by giving me more free time with which to study up on different ways to make school less laborious for Ant.  I’ve attached some pictures of the little house to which I so dolefully bid farewell.

           

Lore and Melissa came by to visit me on my last night in the casita.

 

 

This is what the house looked like before I had turned it into a home.

 

 

 

This was the last puzzle we had done in the house.  My friends and I got pretty into puzzling.  I liked having it set up at my house because I would sneak and do some while everybody was away.

 

 

  Goodbye, house.  You’ve been so good to me and my friends.  We will miss you so.

 

 

 

I absolutely LOADED my car down with all my stuff, just to take it across the road over to Meghan’s house (my new house at Welcome Home).  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I’m now living in a house with my friend Meghan and Welcome Home’s new month-long intern, Kalene.

 

See, no hard feelings   I still love her and am praying for her ministry.  It was just my time to go.

 

 

My new digs in the “Big House” at Welcome Home. 

I’m still unpacking/ rearranging.

 

 

 

Big News #2:  Anthonie Bernardi (my student) and his parents are moving back to Canada at the end of this summer.  I’m sad they will be gone, but I’m also really excited for Anthonie.  It will be SO good for him to be in a class with other children he can challenge himself with, play with, compete with, learn with, and grow with.  I believe God can do great things in his life through this.  I will continue to pray for him as he is gone and if you happen to think of him throughout the day, please pray for him and his family as well.