{"id":703,"date":"2014-04-18T14:44:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T18:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/?p=703"},"modified":"2014-04-18T14:45:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T18:45:01","slug":"a-village-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/2014\/04\/18\/a-village-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"A Village Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

What starts with the rosary and ends with a knife fight?\u00a0 In Las Moras, the answer is a village funeral.<\/p>\n

This last week as our team was at the cemetery, where the village was mourning the loss of and elderly woman.\u00a0 The deceased’s son asked me if I knew how to pray the rosary.\u00a0 I told him that I knew how to pray by talking to God and telling him what was on my mind and in my heart, but that I didn’t know the words to the rosary.\u00a0 Disappointed, he went on his way.\u00a0 It had to be the right words to make it worth anything.<\/p>\n

The family asked around and found one woman who had a booklet from the priest and a rosary.\u00a0 They asked the government doctor to read it.\u00a0 He mindlessly droned the words while the women stood around, serious and watchful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The women gathered around the truck with the casket to hear the rosary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, the men who were helping dig the grave were getting more and more rowdy.\u00a0 Traditionally, the deceased’s family reward the helpers with Cokes, or\u00a0if they can afford it, with beer.\u00a0 In this case the beer was being freely passed around and the drunk men were starting to exchange insults and a few punches.\u00a0 Two men in particular seemed to have it out for each other and were separated twice.<\/p>\n

As the rosary went on and on, the women watched the speaker less and the crowd of men\u00a0more.\u00a0 Drunkenness is something to fear in a village full of men who are frequently armed.\u00a0 Suddenly, one of the brawlers pulled a knife out of his shirt and attacked another.\u00a0 Some men wrestled the attacker away and barely escaped getting stabbed themselves in the chaos.<\/p>\n

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The men charged with digging the grave got drunker and drunker as the day went on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The funeral broke up as scared villagers ran away and headed for home.\u00a0 From our houses later, we saw that a small subdued crowd did eventually bury the woman in the late afternoon.<\/p>\n

The doctors wrote the behavior off as a simple lack of respect and bad behavior.\u00a0 To me it seemed to have to do a great deal more with a worldview devoid of any hope.\u00a0 Only hope will drive out despair.\u00a0 Only true love will drive out fear.\u00a0 And only the truth of the Word of God will bring those things to Las Moras.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What starts with the rosary and ends with a knife fight?\u00a0 In Las Moras, the answer is a village funeral. This last week as our team was at the cemetery, where the village was mourning the loss of and elderly woman.\u00a0 The deceased’s son asked me if I knew how to pray the rosary.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[125,6388,58,416],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-culture","tag-nahuatl-culture","tag-prayer-requests","tag-village-life","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}