Home with Jesus

Please pray for us as a mission during this time. This Saturday night the mission lost a really really close friend and co-worker. He had a heart attack at his nieces wedding. He served at the mission for close to 2o years and he was a huge part of the leadership. His name was Lowelyn. He has a wife, Lynn, and an "adopted" little Zulu girl, Nukatula, who is 10. Lynn is one who helps run the care center here. Please remember them in your prayers. They are taking it very hard and it is going to be a long journey. Please remember to pray for the whole team as well. It is very sad and everyone is taking it pretty hard. I myself am very shocked about this and my heart is breaking. I'm soo incredibly thankful to God that I got to know Lowelyn, even if it was only a short time.. two months. He affected my life soo much in this short time and so I cannot even imagine the great pain the rest of the mission is feeling. He was such a kind, gentle man. He was so caring towards me and he was so genuine and he loved the Lord with all his heart. I'm going to miss him a lot on outreach. He always transulated the Zulu language for me and his heart was with the poor and the needy. Me and him always prayed together for the people in their homes. He always said that we needed to listen the cry of the poor and the needy. I'm going to miss him at team meetings too. What he shared was always so powerful and strong and uplifting. He was 63, and we were just last week, talking about celebrating his birthday which is in two weeks. He always made me feel loved and welcome here and he always asked me everytime we met around the mission, "Howzit my sister?"
For me, and I can say this for the rest of the mission as well, it does not feel like reality. I am still expecting to see him walking around doing the different things he does everyday. We are all in great shock so please, pray for us. Pray for wisdom, for healing, for unity and for protection over the lies and attacks of the evil one. Please pray that at the funeral the Holy Spirit would be working in the lives of his family members. They are unsaved and I'm sure one of Lowelyn's deepest prayers was for them to know Christ.

All of this is bringing back so many memories of just over two and a half years ago when my dad went to be with Jesus. It is good for me to " go through it" again because I believe this is a powerful way that God is going to heal me from my pain of lossing dad. Now that I know it was reality I believe God can deal with my grief and pain once again but in a different way. Because before, it was hard to deal with it all because I felt so numb for the longest time and in a way, blocked it from my mind. But I want God to do His work in me and bring me to more healing and restoration. I miss dad so much and even though it is hard, I love to think about him and remember who God made him to be, from all the little things he did to the greater things. I love to remember how much he loved us and mom and all that he did for us. My dad was so gentle and strong and incredibly compassionate. He loved people dearly. Didn't matter who you were, he cared for you. He accepted everyone in his path and LOVED to talk with anyone he met. My dad is so great and I can't wait for the day when I will hug him again and hear his voice and laugh with him again and hold his big, strong hand and live forever together with Jesus. Thank you Jesus so so much.