Elder Bugay's Funeral

On Tuesday August 20th, Elder Bugay passed away. 

He will be greatly missed by so many people, but we are glad that his pain and suffering had ended. 

As you can imagine, it was a very quiet week in the Bible School. So many here were close and affected by his passing. One of the students was his grandson, and 6 others (from Calamba) were pastored by him before his stroke. 

On Thursday, after service in Bagong Silang, we went to the funeral home where we visited the family. They had a room all set up with photos and beautiful flowers. Their tropical flowers are so pretty and obviously different than in the States.

The entire funeral process is very different here in the Philippines. 

The family stays with the body until the time of burial. There are rooms and facilities for them to rest, because visitors come all day and even throughout the night. In fact, they say that most visitors come during the night. The poor families don't get much rest during this difficult time. 

On Friday morning the casket was moved to the sanctuary in Bagong Silang. Elder Bugay was the pastor when this building was built, and it was very important that his funeral be there. 

Many, many visitors came all day Friday to pay their respects. 

Pastor Pabanil, who is Elder Bugay's son in law, led the funeral service that Friday evening. They had a few family members speak, Elder Bugay's daughter sang, and then Nate had the honor of preaching the service. 

He preached about "A Faithful Man." It was excellent and correctly described the sacrifice and burden of a life lived by this great man of God.

That service started Friday evening at 6:00 p.m. After Nate preached everyone took a break for dinner. We then met again around 10:30 p.m. for another memorial service. 

Friends, Pastors and family members shared memories with everyone. 

According to some of the ladies, these memorial services usually go all night long. They were bringing out strong coffee and snacks for everyone. 

The next morning they had another memorial service and Elder Barrero preached. After he finished everyone came by the casket for the last viewing. 

{Sis. Bugay, her 3 children, and her grandchildren}

It poured rain that entire time so the grave yard was very muddy, but thankfully it was a cool day.

They opened the casket one more time and allowed the family to say their final goodbyes.
Everyone was handed a flower which was thrown on top of the casket, then you watched as they lowered and then completely buried the casket.

We found this very interesting, and also very emotional to watch. 

Please keep the Bugay family in your prayers. 

His passing will leave a very large hole in this fellowship and he will be greatly missed. 

But, thank God for the hope we have of seeing him again one day.