I was glad I was wearing sunglasses. In Africa, men are not supposed to cry. Even small boys who have just lost their Papa are not supposed to cry. But seven-year-old boys do cry when Papa dies, and so did I.
Jacques was one of our newest members in the Natitingou Adventist Church. He was baptized along with 23 others in August 2013. After many years of studying with his Adventist sister and brother-in-law and Suzy Baldwin, he finally decided to join the Adventist church after attending an evangelistic campaign. Last January, Suzy wrote about helping Jacques clear his house of all visible ties to the devil, and of the freedom and peace he enjoyed for the rest of his life as a result of that cleansing.
Each Sabbath after his baptism, Jacques faithfully attended the Sabbath School class I taught for new members. His smiling face and eager participation were a joy to me. It was obvious that Jacques was happy for the things he was learning and for the new life he was living. He was vibrant and glowing, and few of us knew of the constant pain he suffered from stomach cancer.
Jacques had been on the verge of the grave on many occasions through the years, but the Lord preserved his life long enough for him to learn and accept the truth, and to give evidence of the change at work in him. Two months to the day after his baptism, Jacques died in the arms of his brother-in-law who had studied with him for so long.
Looking at his body on the hospital bed, it was hard for me to believe Jacques was really dead. He looked so peaceful, almost happy. I went to him, touched him, and said good-bye. I could not cry for Jacques, knowing he was resting at last. But my tears did come later for his family.
I was asked to drive some women to tell his widow he had died. Her wails still echo in my ears.
I was waiting at the car when Joe, Jacques’ middle son, came home. He came up to the car, excited to see me. We talked for a bit, and I remember asking him how old he was. “Six. No, seven,” he replied.
Then he began to wonder why I was there. “Is Mamma here?” he asked.
“Yes, she is inside.”
“Is Papa here?”
“You should go see your Mamma in the house.”
As Joe went inside, my tears finally came. Tears at the sadness of this family, the tender ages of the three children Jacques had left behind, and the unfairness of death, that takes daddies from six-, no, seven-year-old boys. As a few people walked by, wondering what a white man was doing at that house, I was glad I was wearing dark sunglasses.
As soul winners and missionaries, we stand between the living and the dead. We offer a message of life in a world full of death. Our prayer is that Joe and his brothers will one day accept the message that enlivened their Papa’s last days of life on this earth, and that they will get to spend eternity with him who was taken from them so abruptly and so early.
Later, after the burial, Joe came up to me. I gave him a hug. As he began to sniffle, I told him it was okay to cry. The men standing around scolded him for crying, but I just held him and told him it was fine. It is okay to cry when Daddy dies. Even in Africa. And once again I was glad I was wearing sunglasses.
