McArthur Family Update: The Funeral

The funeral procession began at the Catholic church and ended at the small community graveyard. This was a new and interesting experience for me. I felt many emotions but could not help but be thankful that God had given me the opportunity to be a part of Miss Anna's life in the last couple of days. The whole community came out to grieve with the family. After the viewing of the body they took her to the grave and lowered the casket into the ground and buried her. I remember the deep sound of the first shovel full of dirt hitting the hollow casket and feeling a sense of sorrow. There is no better picture to the end of life than a burial. My heart hurt for the family. I was sadden from what her family had told me days before that she had rejected the gospel. However, standing there I was reminded how the grave could not keep Christ, that He rose and conquered death. Before we get to much further let me rewind to the beginning.

One of my favorite things to do with missions teams is to go into our small town and pray for our neighbors. Last week I had the opportunity to take Riverside Baptist Church. I wanted to go find Miss Anna who had been terminally ill with cancer. After a sweet time of praying for many of our neighbors we went to her house. I had been a few times before to pray for her but this time it was different. Usually she was by herself sitting in her rocking chair. This time we were greeted at the door by her family and Miss Anna was laying in bed looking very ill. Honestly, I had never seen someone that close to death. The family looked sad and tired. Her daughter wanted us to pray for her and told us that Anna didn't have faith in Jesus. So some of the team prayed with her and witnessed to her.

I felt an overwhelming desire to go and get food for the family even though I knew Anna couldn't eat anything. So we left and went to our local store and picked up groceries for them. Upon us entering the house I didn't think Miss Anna would really care about the groceries since she could not eat so I passed her room to go give the groceries to the family. Her daughter stopped us and brought us back to her room and began pulling out all the groceries to show her what we had brought them. Miss Anna's face went from downcast to smiling. In fact this was the first time I had seen her smile. I will never forget that moment. Four days later I got word that Miss Anna had died. I don't know what happened spiritually for her in those last days. I do know that she heard the good news and saw the hands and feet of Jesus.

One of the many things that God has taught me over the years living here is that we as Christians tend to over complicate ministry. Often times we would rather sit around the table and talk about what it would look like to do ministry. When what God is asking us is to just go! We will most likely make mistakes and will have to re-adjust accordingly, but that is okay. John Piper once said something like, "often times our approach to missions is similar to when someone is at the firing range who is just aiming and never taking the shot. He is afraid to miss rather than aiming, firing, re-adjusting, and firing again." We didn't have a plan to go buy groceries for Miss Anna. We didn't know how God was going to lead us but

we just went. God used us and He received the glory.

We feel so blessed to be a part of what He is doing here. We don't always know why things happen the way they do. Or why things take as long as they do but one thing we are positive of we are actively moving forward for God's glory. Thank you for everyone who has partnered with us financially to make this all possible. We have made a lot of progress at the ranch and Lord willing we should be obtaining our residency soon. This is the first step to get children at the ranch. Costa Rica is very slow in their process but they are not outside of God's timing. We meet with PANI (Costa Rica's version of CPS) November 14th to go over LWCR plans. Please be praying that we get residency soon and the meeting with PANI goes well.

Thank you everyone!