Faith Renewed

It has been almost three months since I wrote on this blog.  The gap stems largely from the sheer emotional and time strain of this assignment, which leaves virtually no downtime for introspection.  But there has been something else nagging at me as well.

Three months ago I wrote my last entry, "Faith, Hope and Charity" about how a team of people sprang into action to give hope to an amazing, resilient young woman and her family.  Faith was a 21-year-old burn victim languishing on death's door in a dilapidated care facility here in Monrovia until we arranged for a significantly better hospital, a great surgeon and first-world wound treatments.  For four weeks she rallied and she and her family radiated.

Four weeks later, on March 2, Faith suddenly passed away, much to the surprise of everyone who had invested so much time and love into helping her.  The infections stemming from the horrific burn injuries she received in early January and which had festered with minimal treatment for weeks, simply caught up with her.

I consoled myself, knowing that we had made a good decision to intervene.  Her family had seen the light of hope in her eyes. She was no longer suffering.  In the grand plan of happiness, her small moment of suffering was simply the passageway into a better world.  Faith had been faithful and she had now returned to the arms of a loving Heavenly Father.

But somehow I had the nagging feeling that something was unfinished.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but I had not found the peace I was seeking.  That changed last night.

Each Monday night is my "Mission Home Evening."  That is the night I dedicate several hours to reading the weekly emailed letters from our ninety missionaries, responding where I can to resolve problems, answer questions, encourage, strengthen, praise, offer gentle correction or try to give hope.  More often, it is the missionaries who give me hope.  It was 10:30 last night, the missionary witching hour, and I was closing up my laptop, when something in my head said, "Read one more letter."

It was a letter from one of my zone leaders, serving in the ward adjacent to Faith's.  He described the baptism last weekend of Saba, Faith's mother and her four remaining children, nine weeks after Faith passed away.

He told me that, unbeknownst to anyone, Faith's final words to her mother, just before she passed away, was her witness of the truth of the restored gospel and a plea to her mother to seek for her own testimony and to invite the rest of the family to do the same.

Several days after the burial service, Saba had agreed to take the missionary lessons, but it was not until last month, when they encouraged her to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, that she replied that God had already witnessed this to her.  She told the missionaries that following Faith’s moving final testimony of the gospel, she had begun praying to gain her own witness if these things were true.  She had told them she had received a powerful testimony and she and her family were ready and prepared to make their own covenants.

I called the two missionaries this morning.  They told me they are scheduled to meet with Saba's family today to begin helping them to understand the blessings of the temple and to prepare and look forward to the day when they will be able to attend the temple and continue on the covenant path, both for themselves as well as to perform those sacred saving ordinances for their beloved daughter and sister.

It was Faith’s witness that gave her family the hope and the desire to enter in through the gate of baptism.  It is my prayer that next year her family will be able to make further covenants in the temple, including making those covenants available to their beloved sister, Faith.

The gospel is true, and beautiful.