Dear Family and Friends,

 

As you know, Byeram’s brother Nurik was stabbed to death on November 19th, 2006 at work in the early hours of the morning.  He was a night security guard for a store.   The wake was the 20th of November at Byeram’s mother’s house.  Byeram and I picked up the body from the morgue in my station wagon.  The body had apparently not been refrigerated.  It was wrapped only in a white sheet.  We wrapped it a second time in a thin rug and drove to Byeram’s mother’s house with the windows open. 

 

When we arrived I pulled into the driveway and past the tall steel sheet fence into a small space between the small house on the right and a smaller 2-room shed on the left side.  All of the women (around 20) were on the right near the house in a little clump.  All of the men were on the right and behind the car waiting to carry the body into the second room of the shed.  When I got out of the car everyone started wailing loudly.  I had expected the women to wail but not the men.  The mullah was a young, sour-looking man that I had met before in the central mosque.  He walked with a limp and slightly hunched over to one side.  I walked to the back of the car with him and hesitated out of respect for the mourners who didn’t seem ready to carry the body yet.  “Open up!” he said pointing at the hatch of the station wagon.  I opened up and stepped to the back seat door on the driver’s side.  Byeram continuing to wail stepped to the same door on the passenger’s side.  We began to lift Nurik’s head and shoulders as others lifted the feet from the hatch end of the car.  They placed the body on some straw on the floor of the 2nd room of the shed.  As soon as the body went in the wailing stopped and people seemed so calm again that it surprised me.

 

The rug was taken off of the body and a 2nd white sheet was laid over it leaving only the face exposed.  Then 4 or 5 of us at a time were allowed to go in and view the body.  The mullah gave strict instructions for the viewing.  No one was allowed to cry or wail.  Those with a tendency to cry were told not to go in.  A few people were quickly ushered out when the started to cry with contemptuous rebukes from the young mullah.  Lastly the widow (Goolmira) went in and immediately started wailing and falling down.  The mullah leaned very close to her face and loudly told her that when she cried she was making Nurik suffer more in the afterlife.  Then he had her taken out.

 

All Kazakhs are buried in Muslim graveyards.  Often they are just across the road from the Russian graveyard as it was in this case. The local mullahs used to agree to bury Kazakhs even if they were Christians but that has changed.  The mullah agreed to allow Nurik to be buried in the Muslim graveyard but refused to conduct or even attend the ceremony.  Since all of Byeram’s immediate family are all believers they were somewhat relieved at this.  At the same time they knew that their Muslim neighbors would never let them hear the end of this "embarrassment to the Kazakh people". 

 

There were many people who could have done a better job of conducting the funeral, but in the end Byeram’s family decided on the same guy who always does them in these circumstances.  I will call him Ata.  Ata is the oldest believer in Kazakhstan and a former mullah.  Many of the Kazakh rituals were performed in an effort to give the neighbors as little as possible to complain about.  The body was washed and wrapped correctly.  The pall bearers washed correctly.  The mosque lent them the correct pallet for carrying the body to the cemetery.  The body was put where I had parked the car the day before and we all gathered around in the correct places.  Byeram and his younger brother stood with the Christian Ata on one side.  The rest of the men faced them in ranks on the other side.  The women stood a little off on the third side and the fourth side facing the street was left open. 

 

When the Christian/mullah (Ata) started talking the neighbors began to grumble and interject.  “Your not doing it the right way.” The Christian/mullah continued on winsomely and paused and asked for quiet as needed.  I wouldn’t say he presented the gospel clearly but he did say he was a believer in Jesus Christ.  He said a simple prayer at the end of his comments.  To which the crowd responded: “Is that it? You didn’t say the right prayers.  Don’t we have anyone here who can say the right prayers?  There’s Joe (not his real name).  Joe, you come up here and lead us in the right prayers.  Let’s do this thing right.”  So Joe went up to the front and recited from the Koran and said a prayer.  Then the neighbors started arguing loudly with Byeram’s family.  Before they could really get going the pall bearers (all of them were believers) suddenly started off with the body at a fast walk toward the cemetery which was only about half a mile away.  It was cold and drizzling.  (That night and the next two days we got our first snow of the season.)  I joined the pack of Christians sprint-walking toward the graveyard while the neighbors continued to argue and complain to each other and to all of the women members of Byeram's extended family.  The women don’t go to the graveyard for the burial.  They go one week later. 

 

By the time we got to the graveyard the neighbors and the older Christians had caught up in cars.  The graveyard was at the top of a hill about three hundred yards outside of the village surrounded by fields.  On the other side of the road we could see the Russian graveyard.  We gathered around the body again on the edge of the square hole with great piles of dirt on three sides.  6 feet down a crypt had been dug perpendicular to the access hole.  Three Muslim grave diggers in their early 20’s stood nearby holding their shovels, smoking, and stamping their feet against the cold.  The Christian/mullah said a few more words and another simple prayer.  The neighbors again said he was doing it wrong and had Joe say the right prayer.  The neighbors argued about whether the body should be carried to the grave head first or feet first.  Then they argued about whether the body should enter the hole head first or feet first.  Then the outer rug was taken off the body and it was found (according to the neighbors) that the wrong end was facing the grave.  So the body was recovered and spun 180degrees before being unwrapped again and lowered into the crypt.  We each put a handful of dirt on a shovel and the dirt was put on the body’s uncovered face.  Then the crypt was bricked up (without mortar) and we all took turns shoveling the dirt back into the hole.

 

We all went back to Byeram’s Mother’s house and ate together.  The neighbors stayed for the meal because that is expected.  I was very pleased with Kooderbye and Goolnara.  Goolnara butchered and cleaned the meat, cut up vegetables, and made around 300 of the small fried bread squares that are required for such occasions.  Kooderbye cooked the meat in a large iron wok outdoors over a wood fire.

 

Two days later Byeram called me to say that the person who killed his brother turned himself in!  He is 23 years old and lives in a city about two hours away.  His brother noticed that he was buying things and seemed to have a lot of money.  The brother eventually got the truth out of him and convinced him to turn himself in.  The murder was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 12 years in prison in May of 2007.

 

The fact that the killer came forward is a great relief to Byeram and his family.   Please pray that Byeram would lay all of his grief and anxiety at the feet of  our Lord Jesus.