Seeds of Hope: How one Mormon woman is helping Africa help itself

The father takes a Fanta bottle in his hand and whacks it against a rock. CRACK. With the broken glass, he carves a name onto a roughly constructed wooden cross: "Cesilia." Nearby, the mother, draped limp and unmoving over a child-sized wooden casket, doesn't make a sound. A wiry black woman, body hardened by a life of hauling water and working in the fields of rural Mozambique, her eyes are blank, as lifeless as the five-year-old girl she is burying. The funeral doesn't take long. Friends gather around as the men of the family take turns digging the grave. They sing as the casket is lowered into the ground along with the child's few belongings — a bundle of frayed clothing, a few handmade toys. The melody is heavy with the tears they don't shed.

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