Karen Fund--A Most Unusual and Inspiring Funeral

IN HONOR OF
Karen Ronning
"Keren LeKaren"

August 8, 1971 to March 5, 2000

Karen's Funeral
A Life-Touching Gathering

Karen's funeral touched people. Here is the story as told by the family in emails to friends and relations across the world.

Dear Friends

Dear Friends,

Thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love during Karen's illness and now again after Karen's sudden death on March 5th from a blood clot in her lungs. Thank you for the emails, notes, cards, letters, phone calls and visits! We are truly supported by your expressions of love and your prayers. The Lord is close.

Here is a description of the memorial service.

Karen's Funeral

Karen's funeral was held at 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 on Friday, Mar. 10, 2000 at the Finnish/Jewish settlement "Yad HaShemona" in the Judean Hills just west of Jerusalem, Israel.

It was a fantastic Spring day, with the wild flowers in full bloom on the rocky terraces.

Overhead were occasional puffs of white cloud in a bright blue sky.

Far below lay the flat Mediterranean coastal plains, and in the distance the Sea itself.

It was Karen country. She loved God's nature, big and small, whether open skies or tiny seashells.

The large log-cabin auditorium was packed to capacity with some 250 people. Loudspeakers relayed program to another estimated 250 people standing outside. Karen's friends had gathered to pay last respects. She had an incredible number of friends because of her sensitive and penetrating way of listening, her ability to reach outside herself and actually pay intense attention to another person.

The program was simply the outpouring of affection of friends and family. It was not conducted according to any formal ritual, but included alternating songs and testimonials to the life of Karen and its impact. Her ministry was to suffering people wherever she met them -- whether street bums or business professionals or new Russian and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants or Arab poor people or professors or ultra-orthodox women with 10 to 12 children, for whom she frequently washed floors.

The testimonies to Karen's ways were so upbeat, so full of thanksgiving for having known Karen, that no one had ever experienced a funeral quite like it.

After the memorial service, people silently followed the family from the hilltop cabin, zigzagging some ten minutes down the slope to the burial site. Leading the procession were the pallbearers who carried the simple blond wood casket bedecked only with a heart shaped wreath of flowers on top, and some ivy around the edges.

After the pastor's words of comfort from the Scriptures, a close friend stepped spontaneously forward with a large sunflower.

She told of a poor wilting sunflower dying in the shade of a huge wall, 'til the Gardener reached down and transplanted it, like Karen, into the sun on the other side of the wall, and she stooped and lovingly lay the flower on the grave.

After the last song, "It is well with my soul", the crowd lingered to embrace and comfort the family. Ever so gradually, people climbed the hill to the ethereal heavenly strains of an unaccompanied solo violin.

The beauty of Karen's Homegoing was overwhelming. The pastor referred to our prayers for Karen's healing as being the "second best" for Karen, but the Lord had chosen the very best. He had called her HOME.

The beauty of the situation was overwhelming, so in contrast to the sense of loss for us who remain, so suitable to Karen's release from pain and a yet terribly crippled body.

That evening a group of friends met for a kind of debriefing. It was necessary to help each other come down from the elevation of the experience. One said that he had caught himself several times accidentally referring to Karen's "wedding" and then quickly corrected himself to "funeral". More surprising was that some five or six others confessed to the same slip of tongue.

Or was it a slip? Karen had gone on to meet the Lord Jesus, her Bridegroom. Her sister, Shiri, commenting on Karen's sudden and totally unexpected departure (from a 2 a.m. blood clot in the lung), explained what really happened: "Jesus walked by her hospital bed that night. Karen simply convinced Him that she wanted to go along Home".

Reactions to the funeral were numerous. A Christian doctor said, "It was a moment when time and eternity met". A Christian pastor said, "I did a serious re-evaluation of my priorities" -- evidently touched by Karen's priorities of taking time for people. A friend wrote, "Enjoy Heaven. Enjoy the lights. Keep a place for me".

Maybe a full fourth of the people present were non-Christian friends. One atheist businessman said, "I have finally figured Karen out. She is an angel who took a wrong turn and ended up living among us for 28 years, and now has gone home to be with the other angels."

An atheist veterinarian said, "I knew a bit about the Christian faith, but this was the first time that I actually personally experienced the power of it".

An Orthodox Jewish woman wept.

An Orthodox Jewish rabbi with whom Karen had been studying Genesis said she was one of the best students he ever had…even though she had "misled" him saying that she knew nothing and wanted to start from the beginning, Genesis.

The head of the Neurology Department of Hadassah hospital, where Karen had lain three months, said, "We never expected her to come out of the coma. It is a medical miracle that she did. It is a testimony to your faith and prayers that Karen regained consciousness at all. It is like a story right out of the Bible".

Someone asked, "Are all Christian funerals like this?"

If you would like to share in this unusual experience, you can request the free audio cassette of the funeral service, which we will mail to you. We will also eventually post some photos on our website: http://www.BibleTranslators.org

If you would like to share even more profoundly in this unusual experience, you can be involved in her ministry. A Karen Fund has been started to help alleviate suffering in Israel. This will be two pronged.

One direction will be to collect funds for emergency cases where no institutional help is immediately available. This is to be coordinated with the International Christian Embassy social workers on whose team Karen worked in Jerusalem and throughout the Land of Israel.

The other direction will be to encourage and facilitate development of services of Biblical counseling in Israel. It can begin with a shelf for books written by committed Christian counselors on subjects like depression and other related illnesses. You could send a copy of some book that has been especially helpful to you or a friend.
(POB 34120, Jerusalem, Israel)

A year from Karen's death, we plan to sponsor and organize a conference on depression to be attended by local pastors and parish workers. Our hope would be eventually to see a clinic opened with professional Christian diagnosis and treatment available for sufferers now bearing their pain alone. This is not just a matter of alleviating suffering, but a matter of life and death in some cases.

A pastor's wife commented, "Karen has accomplished more in five months in the sick bed than most do in a lifetime". But, by God's grace, by His loving kindness, Karen's ministry will continue.

During the service Mirja (Karen's mother) spoke of the Grace of God as experienced by the family:

It was grace that Karen was given to us.

It was God's grace that Karen sought to share with others.

It was grace that Karen did not die at her own hand.

It was grace that friends appeared who supported Karen every day all day for 5 months by providing a constant presence by the hospital bed talking, reading, praying, and singing.

It was grace that such multitudes of you from all over the world stood by Karen and us.

It was grace that brought her miraculously back to consciousness so that she could experience our love, friends' love and God's forgiveness and love.

It was grace that gave her a new ability to sense and enjoy the affection and love that was showered on her.

It is grace that has overwhelmingly sustained family and friends throughout these trials of her sufferings.

It is grace that the Good Lord took her home to Himself and freed her from her cramped and crippled body.

It is grace that we are able to rejoice in Karen's Homegoing.

It will be grace that allows your heartstrings to be touched by the ongoing needs of sufferers.

It will be grace that allows your generosity to flow in blessing others -- as God used Karen to bless others.

By God's grace her ministry will continue.
Blessed be His Name.

Words from Karen's Friends
At Her Funeral

I will remember in small ways to jump inside a hurting heart, and, as best I can, help to heal it.

I'll remember to take time to listen to someone ... to accept and not to judge.

If you were here you would say:
Take care of the hurting, look after one another, look after the small things that matter the most.

A Few Weeks Later

A few weeks later we framed her grave with a rectangle of smooth stones from a nearby wadi. At the end of the grave, we placed a large bowl of seashells that Karen had collected over the years. She so enjoyed the exquisite design of each and every tiny shell. She knew also to appreciate God's handiwork in every person she met.

We miss her much, but she has joy and has been made whole. Karen's work can continue through us and through you. Let's love the seemingly unlovable, let's hug more, let's, like Jesus, exercise undeserved love.

A "Karen Fund" has been established in her memory. Its purpose is to bring a ray of light, a ray of joy to those who suffer. Karen, in Hebrew, means "ray of light", and her full name is Karen Joy, a ray of joy.

One Year Later

Dear Friends,

Today is March 5th, 2001. It is already a whole year since our dear Karen passed on from this world to the “world that is only good”. Our comfort is that we imagine her happy and whole. No agony, no pain, no imperfections.

We plan a small gathering by her grave late this afternoon to remind ourselves of what is important in life. Not possessions, not degrees, but the memory of caring and love. We will never forget how so many of you held us so lovingly. Your love to us has been tremendous and unfailing. Three verses were read in the most memorable funeral; they were Romans 8:37; II Cor. 5; and Rev. 21. LOVE NEVER ENDS is written on Karen’s grave.

To add to the love in the world we have “declared” that this day is to be a day of unexpected acts of love, a hospital visit, a card, or a call. Let’s add some love to this world in honor of Karen and in her memory.

Two Years Later

Friends and family gather at a musical memorial to remember Karen and kick off the next phase of the Karen Fund's work. A bookcase of counseling books as been started at the Narkiss St. Congregation in Jerusalem. A lecture series by Pablo Polischuk, a professor of Christian psychology, talks about "The Believer and Depression" at the Christ Church, Jaffa Gate. The work continues slowly but surely.

Three Years Later

In a few days, it will be three years from Karen's death. There will be a small memorial gathering with some 30 friends at Yad HaShemona in the Judean Hills. The program is simply music and readings. At the graveside we plan to place a beautiful relief sculpture given by a Texas friend, Boots Tyner, who made it herself for Karen's grave.

The Karen Fund is sponsoring a lecture series on stress and anxiety by the same excellent lecturer as last year, Dr. Pablo Polischuk of Gordon-Conwell seminary. We still need excellent books on these issues. An experienced retired Christian counsellor would come this coming Fall if we raise the funds to fly him and his wife, also a counselor, to Israel. Presently we are distributing the tapes of last year's conference, and selling cards of Galilee flowers (and soon also an angel card of the sculpture) to help with a minimum income.

Karen would have loved this spring. We have seen the wettest rainiest season in years and years, including a three day snowstorm in Jerusalem. The Galilee is "bursting out all over" as the song goes. The Kinneret has risen a couple of meters. There will be gorgeous flowers, even in otherwise dry desert areas.

We are so VERY thankful for the ongoing maintenance of Karen's website which is so appreciated by those who visit it. We are thankful to the guests and those who sign the guestbook as well.