A funeral

During this period I will not be employed from one date to another date, like I was during the summer. Instead I will be paid for each funeral and each service I lead. The pay is good. I am lucky :-) Getting paid to do what I would like to do most, share the gospel with the population
:-)

Since last time I wrote, I have been leading a funeral. It was an old woman that lived in the coastline area. She had been through a long life and she probably experienced a lot. I went to one of her sons a couple of days before the funeral. I did this to be close to the family and also to learn more of the deceased. This is something all priests do, or should do, when they get words about someone who left life on earth.

In the conversation we came into the subject: Jesus. The man told me that a "healer" he knew and used, had told him that Jesus (He himself didn't believe in Jesus as Christ) teached us to forgive. He had himself experienced through life that forgiveness was important. I then hold on to the subject, and said it was more about Jesus. One of the things, and the most important thing is that Jesus came to sacrifice himself, so we could be forgiven. His eyes grew big when I said this. He hadn't heard this before... He had experienced too many times that representatives from the church had told him how he should live his life... but the things I said about Jesus he hadn't heard them talk about. After our conversation, he said that he liked more the new priests. I thanked him for his kind words, but I also said that there are many good priests among the older ones too.

Unfortunately... there are many Christians who more than often points fingers instead of telling about Christ. People won't do the things Christ compells us to do, when they don't believe in him. I don't believe in Allah... So I don't try to live as a moslem either. The very name Jesus, is explosive. it tears down walls, and gives liberty to the prisoners, he gives sight to the blind, and helps the persecuted (ask me sometimr of these words and I shall explain them more thorougly).

Being with the son I also gained information I could use in the speech I was going to give about his mother. On the day of the funeral I came to the chapell in good time before the funeral was going to start at 11 am. The deceased had three children, all of them are settled persons, with their own children today. Many came to show her a last respect.

In my sermon I spoke of death, as something scary and unknown... but Christians get to know something about it. I also spoke of how to become a Christian... Jesus Christ.

After 45 minutes in the chapell we went to the burialplace. When we left the chapell it was quiet outside, but as we started the final part a terrible hailstorm came. I have never experienced anything like it in the past. Some of the hails had the sice of small "klinkekuler" (norwegian things. Small round glas-things we used to play with as children). It was so painful... to stand there and perform the last part. The funeral agent said a wall of hails bounced on my forehead. But the moment the coffin was placed in the bottom of the grave, everything stopped... and blue sky appeared. Almost divine :-)

My next work will be two services on Christmas eve, one on the 26th... and two more funerals later. :-D