A prayer vigil for the family of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die of Ebola in the United States, was held Oct. 8 at Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, where Duncan’s fiancée is a member.
Joining host pastor George Mason were about 200 people, including representatives of the 10,000 Liberian nationals who live in Dallas; Olu Menjay, president of the Liberian Baptist Missionary and Education Convention; and pastors, chaplains, health care professionals and political leaders.
Mason said, “Over the past week we have heard people over and over again who are worried. They are worried about this virus coming to our country, coming into our life. This is an unwelcome guest, let us be honest. No one wants this virus in our community, in our city or in our world.”
‘We embrace it’
“But when something is here, we embrace it not because it is good — it is bad — but we seek to find what God might do that is good in us and through us because of it.”
Louise Troh, Duncan’s fiancée and mother of his adult son, was unable to attend, quarantined at home with her three younger sons, all of whom were exposed to Ebola through Duncan before his Sept. 28 diagnosis and isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he died Oct. 8.
“Our love for Louise has made this suffering come to us,” said Mason, Troh’s pastor. “We regret the reason. We do not regret the suffering, because when you love someone you are vulnerable to suffering and you are open to joy. Love is the deepest reality of life and so you feel it all.”
The service was live streamed with hopes that Troh might be able to view it. Duncan had come to the U.S. at Troh’s invitation, Mason said, and the two had hopes of reuniting as a family. Troh described Duncan as a Christian who was quiet, generous and respectful of his parents, said Mason, who has counseled Troh in phone conversations during the crisis.
“This service is intended to draw people together, to call one another to God who is Judge of the living and the dead and to lay each of our lives before the mercy of God,” Mason said during the service at Wilshire Baptist, which is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. “The world likes to divide people up in all sorts of ways. And it likes to say that differences mean otherness. … We (Christians) think of the oneness of our humanity as children of God … so our differences can be embraced, not run from.”
Menjay, who is currently living in Birmingham, said Duncan’s death puts a worldwide face on Ebola, known to kill most of those it infects.
“My sisters and my brothers, I strongly believe that the death of Bro. Eric Duncan has put a real face to the lethal Ebola outbreak in our country,” Menjay said. “We pray to God for God’s comfort for the family of the bereaved.”
(BP)
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