On Saturday we attended a Rabuor funeral of a lady who came into the compound at least once a week. Rose was one the first people I met outside our own Kajulu church people. She had a regal bearing and a face one won't forget, even though her life was difficult. Our aquaintance was brief, but she touched me deeply.
Following is an article written by Bernice Troyer. I received permission from her to post this on the blog. You will find this quite interesting. Bernice and Hosea Troyer and their 8 children served here in Kisumu for a number of years.
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"You know what. Rose 'Dongo has gone to Heaven, right? Now we can't have her anymore."Joash Daniel Troyer, age 3
Rose Adhiambo Adongo1974- 2009
Rose is her Christian name.
Adhiambo shows that she was born in the afternoon.
And
Adongo means she was the second born of a pair of twins.
In a culture where people almost throw themselves at Americans, I had to wait to gain the friendship of Rose. She had a healthy kind of pride, and, unlike her peers, didn't ask for things. I admired her and wished she would talk to me, but she was shy and held me at arms length for a long time. One day, when we were walking to Bible Study, she reached out and held my hand as we walked. A warm gesture that blessed me kabisa.
Rose began coming to our compound to cut quilt blocks. She was unfamiliar with scissors, so this was a challenge. It didn't help that her hands trembled from antiviral drugs. The blocks had to be perfect, or fundis who sewed them would be frustrated. I straightened many of her blocks after she went home, so that she would still get paid for her work.
Eventually block cutting stopped, but Rose still came to work. She slipped quietly into our carport on Wednesday mornings and began the weekly ironing. When the little boys got up and wandered outside I would hear her say "JO-ahsh, kuhm!" (she'd learned the dutch word by hearing me say it so often) and "Mahcus, how ah you?" But mostly she would speak only if spoken to. She was easy to have around.
I worried that we would inadvertently offend Rose in someway if she came to our home so often. But at our farewell, she testified "I have worked at the home of the Pastah for a long time and never once was I offended by the children or anyone."
She ironed meticulously and with care, as though ironing for us was an honor. Her own clothes were neatly pressed, and she was clean. Willowy, tall and graceful, her facial features and smile reminded me of my cousin Emmeline.
Singing! She loved to listen to recorded singing while she ironed. She learned songs quickly. Her voice was high, clear and had natural vibrato. She blushed with pleasure when Pastor praised her for her lead singing. Still, she was considerate of others who wanted to sing lead, and never pushed herself forward. So modest.
Pastor would stop by the carport to ask Rose's advise or to question her about cultural or church issues he needed help with. She knew her people so much better than we did.
Rose was faithful at church, at choir, at work, at being an orphans' Matron, to her friends, to an abusive mother in law, to her children. Just faithful. And faithful to the Word of God. If there was cooking for a crowd, singing for a funeral, a teacher needed for the SS classes, a wayward sister to be visited, Rose was the one who was asked.
Rose's mother in law mistreated Rose dreadfully. Whether it was jealousy, guilt or what, she made life miserable for Rose. She claimed to have powers that could cause accidents, etc. One day when Rose was still inside her house, she watched as her MIL threw a traditional curse inside her window. MIL thought that Rose had already gone out and was trying secretly to harm her in this way. It would have been natural to fear...But as a child of God, Rose was safe and unaffected.
The MIL especially hated the CBF church, blaming them for being blood suckers, killers, and more. She was sure that Rose was trying to kill her. For some time she refused to eat anything that Rose cooked, for fear it was poisoned.
She blamed Rose for getting money from the white Pastor, but not sharing it with her. She was upset that Rose's orphaned brother Alfred received things from the orphans program, but her own grandchildren did not. Rose finally had to send her brother to another place to live. Rose took her persecution gracefully, but sometimes things were so bad, that she could scarcely bear it. The MIL turned Rose's son Kelly against her, so that he couldn't/ wouldn't even talk to her. She also took the deed to Rose's land that had been left to her by her husband, and secretly sold it. Later the village chief made the MIL return the money to the buyer and return the land to Rose.
One Sunday, stoic, non resistant Rose, stood in church to talk, but she started crying. We knew then that her persecutions were severe. Her friends gathered round her in a Sunday School room and prayed loudly and cried together with her.
I fretted about Rose's safety. Sometimes we talked of moving her to another place,and sometimes she almost considered it. Yet, something kept her there. Maybe it was her property. And when the MIL fell sick, Rose faithfully nursed her back to health. She sacrificed important events so that she could care for this tormentor of hers.
Rose was strict about locking her house, even when she stepped out briefly and not far away. One day, she came back to her house and was shocked to see that someone had bored a big hole into the mud wall of her bedroom. She kept her dead husband's clothing under her bed, and the thief had tried to pull those through the hole in the wall.
Rose continued coming to our house weekly, and gradually her jobs included hanging laundry, making fruit slush, fresh salsa and odds and ends. She would bring Angelina or Helen or another needy widow along to share the work, and they began coming more often and helping other missionary Moms too. I would cook lunch for them, before we all headed off for Bible Study together.
One day when I served milk, Rose confessed that she loves milk, and misses it, because she used to have as much as she wanted as a child. I wanted to know more about her childhood, her marriage, her husband. By now we were comfortable friends. So I began asking questions.
She seemed to have a decent childhood with her family in the mountains. Her father had 2 wives. The first wife gave him only one child, but the second gave him 12. Rose was one of those. An older sister married and moved to Nyamasaria, near Kisumu. She became acquainted with a young man named Bennard, and thought he would make a good husband for Rose.
So, when Rose was only 15, she married Bennard, and moved to the flat plains of Nyamasaria. It's just too hard to imagine yourself as a 15 year old, moving into a stranger's home, and becoming a wife, daughter in law and very quickly, a mother. Rose was only 16 when baby Evans was born. He must have been a special joy to her in her new and insecure world. But after only a few months, Evans caught a fast, fatal malaria, and was gone within a few short days. Meanwhile, Bennard added to the grief by being anything but a doting groom. I asked Rose at what point she knew that she had married a harsh man. "After one year, I knew." she said.
Kelly, another son, was born next, and then came Jarius. Imagine the grief, when baby Jarius also died from Malaria at only a few months. Martha, Clinton and Lydia joined Kelly. She was bearing Bennard's children, but she was only one of his women. Bennard was a lorry driver, and his jobs took him to other areas where he met women he liked. He would bring them home, and they shared the house with Rose, until they couldn't stand life there, and would run away. "Bennard tried to marry 6 women, but they all ran away" Rose told me.
Then one day, when they had been married about 10 years, Bennard decided to investigate the CBF Church that he had been hearing about. White pastors. Uniform dress and stuff. He started attending. And continued attending. And Rose began seeing a marked change in his behavior! He was easier to live with, and "I was very happy." she said. (And this church didn't allow more than one wife!) She wanted to be a part of a church like that and began attending also. Things went well, until Bennard fell again into the old sin of adultery, and was put on church discipline. He repented and was on a proving period at church, but he became so ill for so long, that he couldn't even go to church. Pastor LLoyd arranged with him to be tested for HIV+ and planned to take him in on a Monday. But on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2001, Bennard left Rose widowed. Widowed, with HIV+.
Rose didn't let the HIV+ stop her. When ARV drugs came to Kenya, she was put on the program, and her health improved. Some weeks before we left Kenya, she told me about pain that she was having in her chest when she breathed. Excruciating pain that really frightened her at night. I did some research on her symptoms, and printed out some info about pleurisy, and asked her to take it to her dr. But she said her dr. thought it must be due to some of the drugs she had been taking. Eventually it went away, and I heard no more chest pain- until this past Monday.
It was when Bennard died, that his mother turned on Rose, and became harsh and increasingly hard to live with. She has been the sand that has rubbed Rose until she shines like a rare pearl. Rose rarely offered complaints about her situation, but occasionally I asked. "How is it going?" And then she would tell me sad, bad, heartbreaking stuff. And the only thing I could think of saying at those times is "Iye, Sistah Rose. One day, when you reach Heaven, you will have a huge reward."
And she would kind of shrug. But now, at age 35, she has reached that "One Day". It's not for her that we are sad. (Imagine that lovely voice soaring in God's choir!!! Greeting fellow CBFers with mighty hand slaps!! Holding her baby sons!!) It's for the rest of us that we are sad.... for her children, for Lillian, Helen, Angelina, and sad for the missionaries. Marji and Lillian wept in each other's arms yesterday when Lillian came to do the fruits and vegetables.
The guy that prepared Rose's body for viewing and burial was drunk. Kim and Sarna were there, saw it and were horrified. Sarna sent a letter describing what she saw. Hosea said I may read it sometime, but not now. Like Sarna says, "Sure, Rose has a new body, but this body was still the one we loved."
Kelly, Martha, Clinton, Lydia~ prayers that they wil carry their mother's Faith!
Rose's two sons, Clinton and Kelly, sitting beside Tommy Wagler. When Kelly stood for his testimony, he held his hankerchief over his face and wept.
The wicked mother-in-law. Looking at her gave me the goosebumps; I never saw such hateful, yet haunted eyes. Her testimony was full of lies.
In was a beautiful funeral in spite of the circumstances. Rose's body was buried behind her house. At the end of the graveside service, the children and the church ladies circled the grave and "planted" the roses Kim had gotten for them into the grave. Hosea's had ordered the roses as a gift from them. It was a touching gesture. In background, Sam and Merle are discussing the day's events.
Pray for the children of Rose, that they could have faith in God and still live with a grandmother who hates godly people.
