Psalm 32:8 says “The Lord says, ‘I will teach you the way you should go…'”

Finding your feet in a strange land and with people like Mr. Cabe (that is ‘tsk-abby’ a Zulu name) can be unnerving. I was to visit his little church and take communion because it was not on any bus line and no Zulu pastor could get to it. When I arrived at the ramshackle mud and stick building that Sunday I knew nobody there spoke English and I clutched my Zulu service book and sermon and prepared to spend two or more hours wrestling with words unfamiliar and taxing. I do mean taxing. Any unfamiliar language is exhausting to use for a long time and the Zulu service book decreed two complete services, one for preaching and the other for communion. My labors would be nothing compared to my listeners trying to figure out what I was trying to say!

Then Mr. Cabe, the deacon, told me his grandson’s baby had died.Would I conduct the graveside service? Two and a half hours later, croaking because my vocal cords were all but paralyzed, I arrived at the site of the service. The baby was in an orange crate.The location of the grave was shale and the hole probably five feet deep by four feet wide in layered shale. Did I mention that I had never even attended, never mind conducted a funeral? I’d been in South Africa less than a year. Faltering, I began the service. I have no idea what I was saying or what they heard me say.  But the service book sustained us all because they knew it, probably only too well. Then came the moment to drop dirt on the makeshift casket. 

Nobody told me that you can drop a handful of damp soil down next to the coffin. In any case there was no moist soil. There was no soil at all. So I picked up a handful of shale and dropped it on the little box. It sounded like a small explosion in  my ears and I broke down and wept on Mr. Cabe’s shoulder. In retrospect I believe the family appreciated that show of emotion on the part of the pale youth who hardly made sense. But let me tell you by the next funeral I conducted, I had attended several and studied and learned more Zulu and been guided about customs and procedures. But I believe God lent me the grief I shared with those people that day. How does it go?

“Lead me, guide me, on the way…”    

-Dick Sales