In His Image

Ok, it’s my fault I haven’t posted in a while, but let me fill you in. We had about 600 people at the funeral and ended up feeding about 500 of them. It was a moving service with her brother Dawson leading the singing and her other brother, Nolan, giving a short synopsis of her life. A good friend of our church, Keith Yates or affectionately known as “Bear,” shared two songs. Bear is blind and was rejected by his family as a baby and grew up in a bunch of homes. It was so neat, to see the joy on his face when he came to the last verse of looking forward to heaven, even after he struggled so much with his emotions the first few verses. My father brought a message on the fact the “Precious in the eyes of the Lord are the death of His saints!”

Afterwards, the pall bearers loaded the casket into the back of our van for the trip out to the cemetery. It was a drive of almost 30 miles since we had to use the largest church in the area. We had contacted the police and they blocked traffic for the processional and the line was about a mile and a half long when we were all close together. I already shared about what our grave side services are like and won’t bored you with that again, but one thing that thrilled my heart, was to sing as a group, “Lift Your Glad Voices!” To see Val with his hand raised to heaven and singing with all his might was so overwhelming.

After Krystal’s passing, we had a week of recovery and rest. Then things kicked into high gear again. I had come to the realization that I needed a little more income to continue to meet our needs and plan for the future, so I started looking for a part time job. The Lord opened one up at a local quilt shop where I can work there two days a week and do the same things I have done for the last 8 years, talk to people and sell sewing machines.

Then to speed it up some more, we got our taxes done and thanked God that there was $2000 there to get our youngest sons eye fixed. For the last two months I have been looking into options for the surgery to move the muscle back on our sons eye. Here in Bemidji, they want $6000 to do the simple, out-patient surgery. I knew we would not have that much money so what do we do? First we prayed that God would give us wisdom to know what to do, and had an anointing. We contacted various hospitals around the area and found the price all about the same, so we tried Canada. They wouldn’t even touch him because we Americans can now sue Canadian doctors for malpractice and thus it is too expensive for them to have the insurance. I stated that we would be willing to sign a paper stating that we would not hold them liable, but he stated that it is our son they worry about. He, (the doctor) would have to carry American malpractice insurance until our ten-month-old son, turned 21. He asked why we didn’t do it in our area and when I told him the cost, he was shocked, “Why so much!!!!”

So we looked elsewhere. A few years ago we had been in Thailand and knew friends there and started looking into going there. There are a bunch of hospitals all set up to work with English speaking people who come there for the same reason, cheaper medical care. These hospitals are equipped just as good as and sometimes even better than our own, and the doctors are often trained here in America. The cost, $1000 - $1800. Add a $900 round trip plane ticket and you are looking at still saving over half the price. And so, after much prayer and talking with the hospital staff and a friend who also had eye surgery done there, we decided to go have it done in Thailand.

That brings me to today, the tickets are bought, plans are made, and Wayne and I leave tomorrow with another couple in our church for the trip over. We will be gone a little over two weeks and would appreciate you prayers for both me and Aimee as she takes care of the other children here at home.

I will be taking lots of pictures and might share some when I get back.

This evening as we had the viewing for Krystal, Val told me that he almost feels bad cause here we are weeping our eyes out and he is just so drained from all the crying he’s done that he has no tears left.  I assured him that we understood and felt no hard feelings whatsoever.

In some ways it is so tough to have two funerals.  Yet this one is sure to be the harder of the two because of tomorrow.  Here at Kitchi, the graveside service is different than any other service I was ever at before moving here.  First of all, we dig the grave by hand.  Then when the casket is lowered into its wooden vault, the lid is screwed or nailed down and then they fill the grave back in by hand.  A few years ago when Krystal’s daughter Kayla was buried there, each of the children and Val helped to fill in the grave.  They were not told to do this, it was simply done by them.

I watched as the family struggled with their emotions and wondered if this wasn’t a little to rough.  Yet I wonder, does not the final reality of the grave close the door on the past and bring to an end the time that our loved one was with us?

I wrote in the previous post about my hearts desire to cling to the past, to want Krystal to still be with us, to refuse to accept that fact that only her body remains, her spirit is home with God.  Yet by physically placing her in the earth’s bosom, with each shovel full of dirt, we loose the hold on the past and look forward to the reunion of the future.  Does it remove the pain?  By all means NO!  Yet it does a more subtle work of helping our hearts to accept what our eyes and spirits know, she is dead here but the future reunion is to be looked for and anticipated.

Quote of the Day;
     “Krystal loved symbolism.  She was going to a wedding for someone else.  She didn’t know she would be going to her own wedding to her Lord.”
-Dale Ropp, Deacon at Kitchi Pines, MN

Today was a little different for me, I did something that I had never done before, I helped dig a grave by hand.  A lot of thoughts go through your mind when you do work like that.  And no, I am not superstitious and feel all creepy and crawly, but it really makes you think.

This wooden casket holds a body and someday will be indistinguishable from the ground around it which we are digging out now.  The wood will rot and man will return to the form that he had at the beginning of time, dirt.  

I asked myself why?  Why didn’t God make us to disappear completely, body and all when we die?  Why the cruel and harsh reality of how disposable we are?  And the only thing I can come up with is this.  God uses death to remind us that this life is only for here.  We came into this world with nothing and we most assuredly will take nothing with us when we leave.  Life here is final.  There is no changing anything once our body has given up it’s breath.  Yet, what we have done to touch the lives around us is the only thing that will last.  These are the only things we “take with us.”  

Everything we see will one day disappear. Everything we can’t see, will last forever!

Krystal walked with God in such a real way that we want to hold onto something of her.  It seems too…finale or something to put her in the cold ground.  Yet when you know her and watched her life and struggles, the best thing of her that I can hold onto is not tangible, but eternal.  It is her unquenchable love for her precious Savior.  If I can latch onto that, then I have a “piece” of Krystal.

Please pray for us here at Kitchi Pines.  I for one, find myself steeling my emotions against any sign of sorrow lest I loose it and fail in all the responsibilities that lay on us for this weekend’s funeral.  I know that I shouldn’t do it but it is the best way for me to cope right now.

But more than that, pray for Val’s family as they have far more questions and grief than I do.  I just hope that we can bear as much of the load as possible so that their weekend can be as free of decisions and responsibilities as possible.

For the service here in Minnesota, there will be a viewing Friday evening from 4-6 and from 7-9. We are not absolutly sure where yet but we will know tommorrow.

The funeral service will be held at 10:00 am on Saturday, January 14, at the Evengilical Covenant Church in Bemidji. The doors will open 1 hour prior to the service for early arrivals. There will be a meal following in the church’s fellowship hall. There is a lot of food being brought but if you want to bring a dish for the meal, or for the family in the days to follow, that is fine.
The church is located just west of Bemidji on Highway 2, past the Bemidji Airport and beside Dave Walters Mobile homes.

Today God Saw fit to take another of His gems home. We received word this afternoon that Krystal Yoder, wife of Val Yoder, was ushered into the presence of her beloved Savior.

She has had a long battle with her heart and today it gave out on her while attending a wedding in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Her brother who is a medical doctor was there with her and said that she could not have been revived even if she had been at the best hospital. It was her time to go.

Please pray for their family! Their oldest son is in Thailand doing prep work for the whole family to move there next year. This also happened at the same time that Val was attending a meeting to plan the development of a Bible school for Asians in Thailand. Pray for the family’s strength in all of this!!