Losing Friends

August 29, 2008
Our relationships in Africa are created to end at some point. Last night I said goodbye to two individuals who God used to expand my idea of friendship.
One, a Kenyan man named Julius Giamulu who I had known for nearly a year, and had unexpectedly met upon arrival in Torit. The second was a young lady named Florence who was suffering and fighting the AIDS virus at a Kampala clinic alone.
Julius was a great assistance to me in beginning several Bible fellowships that were begun among our Kenyan migrant laborers. Julius needed to leave Torit for better employment, to have another avenue to provide for his family in Western Kenya. Though my heart will miss him, his friendship was a trustworthy and strong presence in my life. He was an answer to prayer and perhaps, the one individual of whom had been my closest companion the past ten months in this city.
My time in Africa has been spanned over three years, and I’ve experienced several close relationships with African friends come to a physical ending. The struggle is how often in Africa, the setting, the timing, the location, of goodbyes, is never of our/my choosing. Never. Each relationship hits a point where the other must leave for the next road ahead prepared by our Lord. Julius will be in His hands until we meet again…and I’ve learned that this meeting may be not in this lifetime.
After driving two members of our Bible group home, Grace and Julius, and saying final farewells to Julius, I returned to our compound to learn of the passing of a small, and very sick young lady named Florence. She was a twelve year old girl who looked to be three, weighed perhaps thirty pounds, and lived on a bed in Uganda. When Gene Tan and I would visit her you could see already her facial features protruding from her face, which was extremely attractive despite her illness. During the few times I visited we would find a way to get her uncurled from bed and lead her outside to be up and moving. She had no family and was found abandoned and so the AIDS clinic Mild May became her only home. No visitors other than hospital staff. Her face would light up as she went outside got in a little toy car and took the wheel. She needed major assistance from the klutz (me) behind her but we sped away, and raced along into the parking lot. Florence passed away at a hospital in Kampala, Uganda after her body finally quit working. I’m very thankful for the small opportunity to have interacted and gotten to know her, and trust that she is with the Lord. I continue to say thank you for the consistent and faithful prayers and letters that so many of you have been giving.
John 14: 1-4 “ Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my father’s house there are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the place to where I am going.”

Thanks, Matthew K. Lovelace