No escape for Eleuterio
Missionary Tony Finch leaned over the casket to look at his Tarahumara friend, and as he did so he began to run his hand along the top edge of the casket.
Most of the people in the room probably didn’t notice what Tony was doing. But he was looking for something his friend had always insisted upon. He was checking to see if there was a hole cut into the casket.
The man who lay in the casket -- Eleuterio -- had instructed Tony in the making of caskets several years earlier, and Tony had complied on occasion.
Eleuterio told Tony it was necessary to put a hole -- about one inch in diameter -- in the casket to provide a way for the spirit of the dead person to leave the casket -- an escape route.
"There’s no hole. Nobody cut a hole in the casket," Tony thought to himself.
According to Tarahumara culture, Eleuterio had no escape route.
When Tony and his wife, Lauren, first moved among the Tarahumaras in Mexico, Eleuterio took Tony under his wing and helped him learn the culture and language. Tony would hike the trails with Eleuterio, following him like a child and pumping him with questions about the things the missionary was seeing and hearing.
It was hard on Tony to hear that his friend had died of an apparent heart attack.
"How could he have died? What happened? I just saw him the other day and he was fine," Tony questioned.
Though Eleuterio had been taught God’s Word for two years, he was never known to have placed his faith in Christ -- the only true escape route.
Please pray that Eleuterio’s family and his Tarahumara friends will come to know the One who gives them the only escape from their sins.
Most of the people in the room probably didn’t notice what Tony was doing. But he was looking for something his friend had always insisted upon. He was checking to see if there was a hole cut into the casket.
The man who lay in the casket -- Eleuterio -- had instructed Tony in the making of caskets several years earlier, and Tony had complied on occasion.
Eleuterio told Tony it was necessary to put a hole -- about one inch in diameter -- in the casket to provide a way for the spirit of the dead person to leave the casket -- an escape route.
"There’s no hole. Nobody cut a hole in the casket," Tony thought to himself.
According to Tarahumara culture, Eleuterio had no escape route.
When Tony and his wife, Lauren, first moved among the Tarahumaras in Mexico, Eleuterio took Tony under his wing and helped him learn the culture and language. Tony would hike the trails with Eleuterio, following him like a child and pumping him with questions about the things the missionary was seeing and hearing.
It was hard on Tony to hear that his friend had died of an apparent heart attack.
"How could he have died? What happened? I just saw him the other day and he was fine," Tony questioned.
Though Eleuterio had been taught God’s Word for two years, he was never known to have placed his faith in Christ -- the only true escape route.
Please pray that Eleuterio’s family and his Tarahumara friends will come to know the One who gives them the only escape from their sins.