Written by my daughter, Jewel Vernoy
There is a legend among the Ye’kwana Indians that if you leave your
house and are seen by the death spirit you will die that night. The
Indians feared this spirit so much that they never made windows in their
houses. A few people had become Christians and no longer feared the
spirits in the jungles, but sometimes, in the darkness of the night, it
is hard to hold on to that faith in God. Especially difficult when there
is no light and you can have a snake an inch away from your face and
not even know that it is there, until you feel the fangs pierce your
skin and inject their poison into you. This night was no exception,
there was no moon or stars to share their glimmer to give hope to the
people of the morning, only a dark blanket to cover the village in. It
was as though the darkness wanted to hide something, to keep it a
secret, but what?
I had just turned 15 and thought I could handle anything but those dark nights
could send chills through even the bravest man on earth. As I slept in
my hammock, or attempted to, I heard feet running towards my house, and
they were running quickly. Suddenly, someone was banging on the door
crying out to us, “Please help! The baby has come, but something is
wrong! Please, please come quickly!”
My father jumped up quickly, grabbed a flashlight and his medical bag,
and ran out after the girl who had come to get him. While my father was
running towards the small hut where the young mother was giving birth,
the light of his flashlight shown on a large puddle of blood pooled on
the ground. He stopped the girl and asked her whose blood it was? The
girl replied in a gasp, “Sister had gone to the outhouse and on her way
back the baby was born. This is where it happened.”
As my father listened to the girl and looked at the blood on the mud
path his worst fears were confirmed, “Why God? Why now of all times?
And, also, why to this woman? I don’t understand?” he thought to
himself and he prayed.
When my father got to the hut he saw the parents of the new baby. His
heart hurt for them. How could he tell them? As the man looked at my
father with hopeful eyes, my father knelt on one knee and gently placed a
hand on the husband’s shoulder, shaking his head. “How long?” the
husband asked my father as tears ran down his face and he lovingly held
his wife.
My father was heartbroken over this scene but replied, “I don’t know.
It could be an hour or two…or it could be in the next five minutes, but I
will try to make her as comfortable as possible.” My father
administered some pain killers to the unconscious, hemorrhaging mother.
The
woman had already lost so much blood! If only she was in a hospital,
but even there it would be difficult to save her life. My father looked
at the mother and the puddle of blood that was now forming under her
hammock. Once again, my father shook his head. “Dear God, why? I don’t
understand. She was healthy and this is not her first child so why did
she have to hemorrhage?”
My
father stayed with the family until dawn broke and the mother went home
to her Savior. In the jungle a body must be buried as quickly as
possible or sickness would plague the village. My father also wanted to
make the coffin as quickly as possible because the carpenter of the
village was also the husband of the woman who has just died.
As
my father and the new widower built a coffin, others went to the
burying ground to dig a grave. After her body was placed in the coffin,
we took her to the church and held a service.
During
that week we had been hosting a soccer tournament in our village.
Because of the death in the village the tournament had been canceled. It
was to be expected that the villagers would leave out of fear of the
death. However, some villages stayed because they were shocked and could
not understand the calmness that the Christians of our village had
shown even when faced with a death. Three villages stayed and listened to the gospel being preached at the funeral.
As my father looked around at all the unsaved people, he remembered a prayer my mother had heard during a ladies prayer meeting earlier in the month.
“Dear
God, please do whatever it takes during this tournament to let the
other Indians hear about your Son. Amen” and then my father under stood
that it was God answering a payer through this death. The simple prayer
that the gospel would be preached, that prayer had come from the mother
who now lay in the coffin.
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