Another Tragedy

Timothy, one of our fishermen, lost his 1 year-old baby girl this week. The cause of her death remains unclear.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I wrote that nearly every few weeks someone on the Namumu staff loses a close friend or family member. It’s terrible.

Our fishing guys are camped out on the Islands, so we had Timothy ride back with Mubita, our fishing supervisor, as he was transporting back our catches from the week.

People take funerals very seriously around here and, even with our current financial troubles, the Namumu Management jumped on things very quickly. Timothy was given a crate of dry kapenta, a certain amount of cash for funeral expenses, and we had our carpenter make a coffin for his baby girl. Having to oversee the construction of a tiny casket for a 1 year old girl was probably one of the saddest things I’ve ever done. It was not a good afternoon.

I made a trip out to Timothy’s house with a few other Namumu employees and seeing Timothy so sad made me feel even worse. I sat around with the men, about 15 of Timothy’s friends and neighbors, for a while in the early evening. We sat outside on small chairs under a big tree and everyone either talked quietly or just sat. Man, it was depressing.

Please take a moment today to pray for Timothy and his family, and for the health of the children in the Siavonga area.