Where will I be buried?

The question of salvation is not only a event versus process question, but there are other significant issues that come into play from the perspective of those who live in Eastern Europe. As Mark and Kathy Eikost were pointing out to me earlier this week, for Romy people living in Bosnia the first question related to salvation is, “where will I be buried?” The Romy have their own cemetery, but it is considered a muslim graveyard and the Hoja (muslim cleric) will not allow the potential convert to buried in their traditional cemetery. Nor will the Catholics allow the potential convert to be buried in their graveyard. So the potential convert has no place to leave his or her mortal remains. What is a person to do? What should we perhaps try to accomplish in this situation? Are there steps that we can take as missionaries to resolve this dilemma for these potential converts?

The question of where I will be buried has larger implications than only for Romy converts. It’s a question I need to ask myself. Where will I be buried? Where will my final resting place be? Will it be here in Macedonia? Will it be somewhere else in the world where I might travel and work? Or will I return to my childhood hometown and find my final resting place there? These questions are important for more than a final resting place answer, because the answer to the question also frames what I am doing with my life. This then raises the question for me, is what I am doing worth dying for? Ok, of course all of you really spiritual people out there will immediately answer yes, but I am not sure some days. The price of what I am doing grows higher each year, and the costs to me personally in this life seem to have an inflationary tendency -- to always costs more. So I do not want to give a flippant answer. I need to think more about whether salvation is an event or a process (or both as most suggested in their comments), and I certainly need to think about where I am going to be buried.

I think I will go and . . . think.