A Christian Funeral.

Today was a first for us - attending a funeral here in Thailand. I've actually been to two when I lived here before, one Christian and one Buddhist, but time has dimmed my memory so I was curious as to what a funeral would be like.

This funeral was for the mother-in-law of the pastor of the church we attend here, so we never actually met her. Our day started off bright and early for the 1.5 hour ride to Lamphang. We stopped by church and picked up a few people and headed down the road. 

I was beginning to see the humor in the situation after we made our third u-turn because we realized the man who was supposed to tell us where to go didn't actually know... where to go. :-) A few quick phone calls and we got to the right place with minutes to spare.

It was a combination funeral/church service since this lady was saved. During the slide show of pictures they played the song, "Amazing Grace" and the thought brought tears to my eyes. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. This lady is experiencing the fullness of that amazing grace!

I'm glad we're just entering hot season and that the service was at 10:00 in the morning. I'm thankful for the fans they had blowing to circulate the air!

Pastor Srithone preaching his mother-in-law's funeral service.

After the service, they served a delicious Thai lunch. The fried rice came out first and from there the dishes got hotter! I tried some of the fish with chilies, but that's about as far as I went. :-) 

I wish I had taken a picture of the truck on which they put the casket. I had never seen a funeral procession before (or a cemetery for that matter) here in Thailand, so it was intriguing to watch the men load the casket onto a flat-bed of a truck and put all the flowers on there too. It looked to me like 8-10 people rode along in the bed and away the procession went. The police directed traffic and then hopped on their motorcycles to get ahead of the procession to the next intersection.

The service at the graveside.

Praise the Lord for the hope of eternity and heaven! There were tears at the funeral and I'm sure more so in private, but when you say good-bye to a Christian you know you will see them again and that is a wonderful thought.  

Today wasn't our typical Sunday by any stretch of the imagination, but was still an opportunity to praise the Lord. My big praise for the ride home is that Paul fell asleep for a good hour, rather than "serenade" us the whole way home! Sleep is good. :-)