A Pilgrimage to My Past and to Life

In 1963 my father died an untimely death and was buried in an obscure graveyard in an obscure rural area of what most Westerners consider an obscure country, Tanzania. To go that area, called Ihanja, you must go to what seems the middle of nowhere, then keep going. Yet to the many people who live there, it is home, the center of their world. And my father is legendary.

Finally, after sixty-two years, I made a pilgrimage back to visit his grave. I also got to sleep in my childhood bedroom of the home where we lived; I preached in the church that descended from his ministry and had multiplied to fourteen congregations; I visited the locations where he had started and then developed a Bible school to train pastors. I connected with my two overjoyed babysitters; and I met many people who were descendants of his ministry. I have never been so welcomed, loved, and honored by so many people for such an extended period. And it was all because of who he was. I went from feeling like a fatherless boy to the son of a legacy.

I think of all the fancy graveyard monuments in the world, usually for people who die wealthy—versus all the people who drown in the ocean or are blown bits with nothing to bury. And it seems to me that the nature of our burial really doesn’t matter a whole lot.

What matters, of course, is the life we live—however long or short our life may be. How are you living yours?

I meet far too many people who focus on living a long life. I don’t meet nearly enough people who focus on living with deep personal meaning and with intentional purpose that impacts the people around them. Which of these two ways of life are you living?

I no longer see my father’s small monument as a lonely grave. He himself lives in his resurrection body in heaven together with those who have gone before us and where the rest of us will follow. I’ve come to see his gravestone as a memorial to the people there, a witness to his legacy in the kingdom of God. Most of the surrounding graves don’t even have headstones—just piles of rocks because the people are that poor. And my father’s body is appropriately buried in their midst, the people he loved.

Even in death, some people teach us how to live.

In big ways or small, and whether your life is long or short, what might you give yourself to that’s better than long life?