A Tribute to Domingo

While we were out of town, we received a text message from one of the youth in the neighborhood that our elderly friend, Domingo, had passed away. He was a blind man living alone in a tiny, one-room house, where the tree-trunk walls didn't touch enough to keep the wind out.
He'd been battling some sort of infection or tumor in his jaw, and hadn't been able to get out of his bed the last few times we'd visited. The final time we saw him was just a few days before his death. At the other houses we'd been to, Saul had been reading a Bible verse or two and translating them into Guarani. At Domingo's house, however, he stopped short and asked Ken which verse he thought he should read. Ken suggested John 14:1-3:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

None of us had any idea that those words would be realized so soon in Domingo's life. We're thankful for the opportunity to have known him and look forward to seeing him again on the other side.