Kandie and I did something we have never done since living here in Yendi. It all started at 3:45 am this morning. That is when our alarm went off so we could leave about 15 minutes later. Timothy Niligrini and his brothers have been celebrating the final funeral of their mother and father who died 5-6 years ago. There are 24 different families celebrating the funerals of their loved ones. The final funeral is a 3- day affair. Today was the day they shared meat with the visitors in the village. The church members knew there would be lots of work to do so they had told us they planned to worship very early in the morning. We thought it would be nice to come show our respects to the Niligrini family and worship with the Church. It was so early I had to dodge the goats sleeping on the roads this morning when we drove through the town and villages. 

We arrived at Jagrido well before any light was in the sky. There were people everywhere in the village. As I drove up to where the church building is located, we could see several groups of men hovering over freshly killed animals. One of the butchers seemed to be in charge of meat distribution. Different parts of the animals are designated to be given to certain people in the village like the chief. In front of the pickup a tarpaulin was stretched out on the ground and was littered with young children who were sleeping. Women had cook fires roaring with pots on them. Mind you, this was happening at 4:30 am. 

Around 5am the men from the church started moving the benches into the church building. The benches were being used by all the people around the Niligrini compound. I didn’t preach this morning. Daniel Niligrini, Timothy’s older brother and a leader at the church, spoke. After services we left some money for the family as well as money for the chief of the village. It was too early to visit him so Timothy was going to present the money to him in our stead. 

This afternoon and later this evening Kandie and I worked on making up the payroll for the next 5 months. Our guests, Jim and Pam Clark, will be arriving late next week and we will be quite busy for the next 2 weeks while they are here. We will only have about 3 weeks after they leave before we will travel back home so we didn’t want to wait until the last dog was hung (an old saying my parents used) to get ready for our departure. 

Hope you had a good Lord’s Day as we did. May God bless!

In His service,

Stephen and Kandie Taylor

& Skeeter

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