Sunday, August 15th 2010
Whatever part of the first week wasn’t spent in getting to Africa was spent in preparations for the funeral of Pastor E E Essien. Funerals are generally a grand affair in Nigeria and many were keen to make sure that Pastor Essien’s was even more so. The “Celebration of Life” took all most all of two days to complete.
We began in the home of Pastor Essien. Here we all took turns coming in to view the body. Speakers with a microphone were set up all over the area surrounding Pastor Essien’s home, and on these speakers was announced whose turn it was, e.g. visitors, friends, close friends, extended relatives, etc. Finally the pastors of the NCLC came last and took his body out to the family where we then lined up and walked across the road to the church. When I say we, I mean it began as we but suddenly skipped to them as I was pulled out of line and told to go ahead and be inside the church waiting to receive the body when it arrived.
Here we had the funeral service. I gave the sermon. This was my only real part of the service. Pastor Bassey and Pastor Patrick Udo did the rest of the funeral. After the service the body was taken back again and put inside E. E. Essien’s office, where everyone tried to cram inside the office which was barely big enough for one man much less the whole family, all the pastors, and his close friends. I have no idea what was going on inside. Which is generally the normal state of things when I am overseas.
After all of this, there was beer and food and live music. Thousands of people whom the family did not know where generous enough to come and help eat the food. Many of them even thought to bring bags and fill them with food to take home. One of the Essiens was telling how at a similar funeral, a goat was being roasted, and the guests were supposed to cut off a chunk of meat for themselves. One man attempted to cut off the entire back leg of the goat and take it home.
The following day, which was Sunday. There was a celebrations service with pastor Antai preaching. After the preaching they read a wealth of letters that had been sent to the family, and gave the family and friends an opportunity to come up and speak. After this we returned to E. E. Essien’s body, were once again the entire company attempted to gather in the room of his house. E. E. Essien’s body was buried underneath the floor of his living room. Finally there was some sort of ceremony were Martin was supposed to eat a cows head. You can ask him about that.
Certainly by all accounts, Pastor Essien gave many years of his life to the Lord. We thank the Lord for his many years of service and pray for His family. The account of Essien’s life which was printed in the Funeral service folder will follow in the next post. I will also put up pictures and perhaps pieces of the video when I get back to India and can transfer them.
In His Peace
Matthew Ude