Weeping With Those Who Weep



Today I am going to take just a little bit of time to talk about something that I hope might be helpful.

First off I want to say that while my dad was in the hospital and after he died, I was immensely encouraged by anyone and everyone who spent time with us, offered timely words, gave big bear hugs, sent meals.  I was never offended by anything anyone said or did.  I am beyond grateful because I know all of these things were done from caring, concerned hearts.  It was amazing to experience the love of the body of Christ!

However, now that it has been almost four years, there are a few things I learned through the process that I believe will help me grieve with others in the future and I thought I would share those today.

 

1. If you are a close friend, go to the hospital. (maybe even if you aren't super close)

 

Right before my dad died, I had a couple other friends who "lost" parents.  At the time I wanted to help encourage them, but I wasn't sure what to do.  I would have never thought of going to the hospital because I assumed they would want space and would want to spend that time with family.  When my dad was in the hospital and we knew it wasn't looking good, a lot of our close friends came to be with us.  There were people from my mom's Bible study and some of Emily and my close friends came and stayed overnight.  A bunch of them slept on the floor of the waiting room with us!  The next morning after he died, a ton of friends came.  Our college pastor at the time was there and he read passages of Scripture to the whole group.  I can't fully express how much it meant to us to have so many people surrounding us at such a hard time. 

I do know that people handle these situations differently and some may not want lots of people around.  If you're not sure, just ask! 

 

2. Just do it.

 

Like I said earlier, when a friend loses a family member you may feel helpless but you do want to help.  Many people told us, "If there is ANYTHING I can do just let me know."  This is so kind and means a lot, but the person you say that to is probably not going to know what to suggest.  Either that or they might not actually feel like they can take you up on it.  I think a better thing to do may be to just do something you know would be helpful. 

 

Ideas:

- Take a meal and/or organize a group of people to bring meals.

- Go over and do some yardwork.

- Take her out for coffe.  (She may not want to go, but offer.)

- Take breakfast over one morning.  (We had a friend bring bagels one morning and it was so sweet!)

- Offer to help look for important files/documents.  (I had a friend fly out all the way from Massachusetts and she helped with this.  We would have never thought to ask, but it was so helpful.)

- If you have experience with accounting, offer to help settle finances.  (You probably don't want to offer this if you aren't a close friend or family member.  But we did have help with this.  This is, I think, even more useful when it's a widow.)

 

There are many other ways that you can help.  Just be creative!  Don't worry so much about offending or hurting the person.  Usually he or she will know that it comes from a heart that wants to help!

 

3. Ask, "Do you want to talk about it?"

I am pretty sure that most people are afraid to ask this question.  They are especially afraid to ask about the person who died.  However, I found this question to be very refreshing.  I was already thinking about my dad, so it's not like the question was hurtful or made me think of things I was trying to push aside.  In fact, sometimes this question distracted me from the sad thoughts and redirected them to happy memories I had with my dad. 

Again there may be people who feel differently, so just ask gently.  The worst they can say is that they'd rather not talk about it.  At least they know you care.

 

4. Ask, "How are you doing?" 

This one may be a little selfish on my part.  I had a lot of people ask me how my mom was doing, but not many asked how I was doing.  I understand.  My mom obviously had a MUCH closer relationship with my dad than I did, and it was definitely harder on her than it was on me.  So I definitely appreciated this question, but sometimes it was just nice to hear someone ask me how I was doing. 

 

5. Write a note and/or send a little (practical) gift.

If you don't know what to say, write out a verse, or a passage from the Bible.  Since all comfort and encouragement ultimately come from God, what would be better than this? 

 

6. Sometimes, don't ask anything, just be a "shoulder to cry on" as the saying goes.

Before you ask a question, stop and think of just how often the person is being asked that same question.  Maybe they are just a little bit tired of spitting out the same response time and time again.  When in doubt, go back to #3.  If they want to talk about it, great.  If not, find something fun to do that may distract them for a little bit.    

 

Again, this post is in no way meant to be a complaint.  Like I said, nothing anyone said or did ever offended or hurt me.  I only mean to be helpful, because before my dad died, I pretty much had no idea what to do or say in this situation.  If you feel that way, don't just ignore the situation.  God can use you to bring so much comfort!

I have...time!

Wow. I can't believe I have time to post a REAL blog post!



Not only have I been experiencing the busyness of being engaged, but work has been crazy!  Did every. single. one. of you purchase One Perfect Life?  Because I believe every one on the planet bought it.  But, the orders for that book are finally receding and we can now breathe at work.  ;)

Anyway, I feel like a little random update is in order.  (Mainly in pictures for those of you who don't like to read much.  These are definitely not in any particular order.)

 

First off, it was kind of surreal to take a morning off of work to go with Kwacha to fetch our marriage license. What??!!

  Also, really weird to change my last name.  Weird and just a little bit sad.  But not. 

 Another new happening is that Kwacha and I are now going to a new fellowship group at church, Mainstream.  That means that I obviously left high school staff.  :(  One of my small group girls was so kind to bring a cake to my last Bible study.

 And I was able to go to the Shepherd's Conference one day to work at the GTY booth.  Always fun to see my sister on the job. 

 (Wow, I'm just realizing how out of order this post is.)  Below is a picture from the shower that Emily and Melissa Norton threw for me at her house.  These are most of the GTY girls that came, just missing Bridget!

One thing I have really been enjoying are my early morning coffee dates with Em on Tuesdays and Jenn on Wednesdays.  It's amazing how much you can have to catch up on with people that you live with!  I always learn a lot from both of them and I always leave encouraged.

(Jenn is not typically THIS bright.)

 This year was the first year I've ever had a Valentine.  ;)  We celebrated the day after and went to some friends house for a Valentine's Day dinner on the actual day.  By the end of the night I was slightly disappointed that Kwacha had not really done anything or really even said anything about the day.  (Lame of me since we were going to celebrate the next day!)  But that night when I went up to my room after he left, this is what I found. 

 In Febrary, we were able to drive up north and visit our friends, Anton and Marietjie Van Straaten!  Marietjie used to disciple me and it had been three years since I had seen her!  Hard to believe.  We had such a fun time with them!  (Kwacha's just a little dark and the rest of us are super white so it kind of threw off the white balance.) 

 And you can tell I'm getting married soon, because the girls at work hung a veil over my desk.  Or a mosquito net...depending on how you look at it...

Can't believe the wedding is 25 days away!

DIY Light

I may have blogged about this before...I can't remember!  :/  But this time I am posting it for a little giveaway on www.abeautifulmess.com which is actually where I first found the DIY project in the first place.  You make it using a cookie cooling rack and white strips of material and lace.  :) 

 

Twins

So, you'd think Shelsy and I see each other every day or something...



Adventure!

http://www.alicia-bock.com/search?updated-max=2012-11-07T12:31:00-05:00&max-results=10

This is from one of my favorite photographers, Alicia Bock.  You should check out her site! 
I like this because it gets me excited about life ahead of me!  God is certainly preparing an adventure.  Moving to Africa!  More thoughts on that later...

I'm getting married!!

 

We are getting married April 20th.  Craziness.

I am so happy to be marrying such a loving, caring, godly man.  I really don't know a sweeter guy.

God is so gracious to me!

 

Malawi!

As promised, here is a recap, mainly in pictures (and although there are a lot, I had to leave so many out!) of our time in Malawi. Well actually Kwacha is STILL there.

I will try to let the pictures do most of the talking.

First up, a lousy picture of downtown Lilongwe. I took it while driving through. This is very close to his sister's house whom we stayed with.

I didn't get any pictures of when we first got off the plane. I wanted to BUT....I fainted. Yes, fainted, two minutes after getting off the plane. Never fainted before in my life! I guess I was overcome by the beauty of Malawi.  Or it could have been a combo of being sick and very tired. 

Oh well, thankfully I felt much better after a shower.

The next morning we took a little trip over to ABC (African Bible College) where the Biedebach's live.  Below is the fun tree house in front of their house.

Brian and Kwacha.  :)

Brian was excited to show us his "new" old tire cover.  He traded a brand new one he had for this one with just the right acronym.

"Game" is a store from South Africa that has made it's way to Malawi.  It looks just like a Target or Walmart inside and has pretty much the same kind of products!

Spar is another store that hails from South Africa.  Kwacha's best friend, Kondi, is the one with the shopping cart.  This is, unfortuantely, the best picture I got of him.

And an outdoor market.  Yummy organic vegetables.

 

The sky is always interesting in Africa!

Another supermarket, Shop Rite, that has all the food you could want.

The next day we drove six hours north to Mzuzu to visit Kwacha's parents.  We had a beautiful drive up with many sights to see!

Below is a large brick oven.  Most villages have one of these.  They make bricks within these structures.  Apparently they will spend all night stoking the fire, then they put in the bricks and close up the holes for a week or two. (From what I remember.)

Is this really Africa?

We often found lots of men piled up in trucks.

Finally in Mzuzu!

Below is one of my favorite pictures I saw at Kwacha's parents house.  So I took a picture of a picture.  :)  It's of Kwacha and all of his siblings.  The order in age, from oldest to youngest, starts in the bottom right and moves clockwise.  Chance, Granger, Jellita, Evelynn, Kwacha, and Malumbo.

I love Kwacha's face.

I was able to meet all of his siblings, except Chance, who died about four years ago.

We spent the night at his parent's house and the next morning we took a short trip to Nkhata Bay, on the shore of Lake Malawi.  It was a breathtaking drive!

Believe it or not, our first real picture together.

Look at the fish!

When we got back to Mzuzu, we saw cars lined up at the gas station.  That meant fuel was available!  This is actually a short line.  But by the time we got to the front, it was all gone.

Kwacha's family. 

From left to right: his aunt, mom, dad, Kwacha, Jellita, and niece, Ruth.  (Or Ite, as her family calls her.)

That night, when we got back to Lilongwe, we had dinner at the Floreen's!  It was fun to see them in their nice home and enjoy sweet fellowship.  :)

The next day we took a trip to Lake Malawi.

On the way, we stopped at the Parliament building.  The Simwaka's have a cousin that works there.  ( He's on the left.) We actually sat in for a bit on a session.

Close to Parliament is a five star hotel that the Chinese built.  It's almost ready to open.

We passed a village and saw that it was market day.

We had lunch at a Sunbird resort.  Here you can see Lizard Island which is populated with large monitor lizards.

The local fish, chambo, and their staple food, nsima, at the very top.



Kwacha was a little sleepy.  Still fighting jet lag.



Monkeys!

Beautiful sunset from a beautiful Creator on the way home.





The next morning, our last morning, we visited a local village.  Kwacha and Kondi have visited there many times. 

On the way I snapped one of many pictures of a bike carrying a huge load of firewood!  I don't know how they do it.

The chief of the village.

Kwacha brought him sugar and rice.

This man was so nice!  He gave us a little tour of one of their thatched roof homes.

And now for the pictures I'm sure most of you readers have been waiting for, cute village kids!

This girl in pink made her way into many of the pictures!



The lady below specifally asked Kwacha if I could take her picture.



Beautiful!



I was trying to get a picture of the building but somehow Pinky snuck in there.  :)



As we left, the kids followed our car.  We had quite a trail running after us. 

(These really are just a smattering of the pictures I took at the village.  Most of the pictures were crowded with kids trying to get in there.  :)

And here are some pictures of Jellita's house.

The room Em and I stayed in.

The living room.

Kitchen.





Kwacha's sweet cousin, Agnes, who insisted on washing our clothes!

From left to right, me, Evelynn, Kwacha, Jellita.



We stopped by Kondi's house to say goodbye to his wife, Patricia, before we left for the airport.  They had us over for dinner one of the first night's we were there.  I really enjoyed their family!

Here is Kwacha with their oldest daughter, Karen.  This is right after we got her to say cheese.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera to catch a smile.  ;)  But isn't she so cute??

And here we are with Patricia and Karen. 

The trip went by way too fast!

 

We had such a good time with Kwacha's family and all of the people we met there.  They are so kind.

Someday, you really ought to visit Malawi!  ;)