Another reminder today that there is so much more to crossing cultures than just being able to get by with the language.
The mother of one of our friends from church died last night. Julie heard about it in her Bible study group this morning. It didn't come as a surprise because she had been very unwell.
Knowing a little of the culture we knew that everything would happen very quickly, in terms of the funeral and things. So I rang another friend from church early this afternoon to ask about the details. And he told me that it was all over... they had had the velatorium this morning in the funeral home, where our pastor had said a few words, but with mostly just family present and she had been buried just after midday. We were keen to support them in this but hadn't acted fast enough.
Not really knowing what to do I popped around to their place this evening, taking a cake Julie had made. It's so hard to know what is appropriate in another culture- perhaps what I did might be seen as quite intrusive. If so, they will hopefully forgive me as an ignorant foreigner.
Just a reminder of how much we have to learn.
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