In Memory

To meet Vangile was to smile.  There was always a smile on her face and an easy laugh slipping out with charm.  Friendliness radiated through and from the smallest child to the grumpiest adult, she could disarm anyone.  She made friends of Chinese University Deans, strangers on a bus, every student she had, and children, especially children.  But she possessed so much more than a sweet smile and genuine laugh.  She had the joy of the Lord.  She was quick to tell everyone and anyone where her joy came from.  It didn’t come from her circumstances.  It didn’t come from her job, her relationships, her finances, or her life adventures.  It came from God.  “God is good all the time,” was the continual refrain on her tongue.  And right behind that came a story of how God had been good to her recently, probably even that day. 


It would be easy to think if you didn’t know her well, that this bubbly joy came out of her personality or her upbringing or even her easy life.  But that simply wasn’t true.  She was born into a humble home in one of the very smallest villages in South Africa.  Her father is a struggling cattle farmer like his fathers before him.  After, he met Jesus, he became the village pastor, telling person after person of God’s love and inviting them to learn of Jesus along with him.  Her mother was continually ready to welcome anyone and everyone into their home and share whatever they had freely.  But her diagnosis with severe diabetes coupled with their meager finances and medical resources had left her with one leg amputated and regularly on deaths door from any infection that threatened her.  One sister passed away at the age of 11 in a car accident and the other has chronic medical struggles.  Vangile and her brother were left to help her father support the family.  Opportunities for work in the small town were few so Vangile went off first to University, then to America for her Masters degree, and finally came to China to finish her Doctorate.  The money she earned went home as often as she could find a way to send it. 

Several months after Vangile arrived in China, she began to experience some strange symptoms that were dismissed time and again by the doctors she saw.  Finally in June of 2017 it became apparent that something was seriously wrong, and she went back to South Africa for surgery.  While there she was shuffled around the medical system, first in the public hospital where no one was able to help her, and finally into a private hospital, where a surgeon hastily performed surgery on what was supposed to be the problem, and then left on his vacation the next day leaving her with no follow up care.  Fearing that she would loose her Chinese visa, and worrying about causing her family any more expense, Vangile returned to China.  Not fully knowing any of this, and disarmed by her sweet smile, we supposed for the coming weeks, that she was simply having a difficult recovery from major abdominal surgery.  But over the weeks as she laughed less and struggled more our concern increased.  Still she smiled and spoke of the goodness of God and brought joy to her students and friends. 

Finally it became apparent that something was truly wrong again and we stood by her side as she was diagnosed first with tuberculosis, but that wasn’t all the doctors said.  They couldn’t account for what else was wrong but something certainly was.  So off she went to a tuberculosis treatment hospital where we could no longer visit.  We prayed for and supposed that she would recover and during her recovery that the doctors would finally discover what the other “thing” was that had been evading every doctor for almost a year now.  But that wasn’t the way that God answered our prayers.  Instead, quite suddenly He called her home.  Whatever the “it” was we will never know, but God used it to end her journey here and usher her into her forever home. 


Because of the amazing testimony of love and joy that Vangile had left, the University she worked for covered every medical expense, and brought her father here to take her body home (an unimaginable expense).  In African culture it is nearly impossible to obtain closure without being able to physically lay a body to rest.  

It is almost impossible to justly describe the experience of meeting Vangile’s father.  For all the joy that radiated from Vangile, it should have been no surprise the kind of man that her father was.  To enter his presence was to feel at peace.  I have never experienced so fully, “the peace that passes understanding.”  Here stood a man who had suffered a terrible and really unexplainable loss.  His previously healthy 34 year old daughter was snatched away in what was expected to be the middle of her life.  He had already lost one daughter, and now a second.  His wife was in the hospital as we spoke, fighting for her life once again from the diabetes.  Mourners were at his home, awaiting his return.  He should have been full of questions, of anger, or of denial.  But he wasn’t, he was full of peace.  He was sorrowful of course, a deep and powerful sorrow, but a peaceful one.  We all spoke of our memories of Vangile. And then we spoke of the goodness of God.  HE reminded US that we are all on a journey home, and Vangile had simply gone ahead.  We would see her soon, he said.  He spoke of finding encouragement in the book of Job and learning like Job that God doesn’t always give us answers, but that God is always enough.  He encouraged us to keep going, to keep loving, to keep serving, and to keep believing that God is good. 

The impact of Vangile’s life and death on her hundreds of students, University colleagues, community friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, friends around the world, and family back home is impossible to measure.  Her testimony was strong and the questions being asked by those who knew her are valuable and priceless.  We can never know why God chose to end her story at this time, and this way, but her life was not without impact, in fact the impact she left in her 34 years is more than many people will leave in twice that time. 


My heart broke into what felt like a million pieces loosing my friend.  Grief has so many layers.  Because of how complicated the situation is when a foreigner passes away abroad, we weren’t able to hold a memorial service until after her father had returned home and everything was settled.  So just a month after her passing, we met together and celebrated the life of our sweet sister.  It was a time of mourning, and a time of joy as we celebrated the beautiful life that she lived here on earth, and the even more full and extraordinary life that she is experiencing now.  What the extended time did provide was space to mourn, and question, and regret, and accept, and finally rejoice.  It gave me time to reflect fully on the life of my friend.  And this is how I will forever remember Vangile: 


“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me to tread on my high places.”  Habakkuk 3:17-19

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