By Chellie Ison
Ohio, October 31, 2019: When Keith Ball left for India early October, his family in the United States never imagined that they wouldn’t see him again.
Ball, minister for the Delaware Church of Christ in Ohio, and a college friend, Steve McIntire, traveled to Bidar, a town in Karnataka state, to work with a church.
While there, Ball was bitten by a mosquito and infected with the Chikungunya virus. Less than a week after he was bitten, Ball died on October 27 at a hospital in India.
The Chikungunya virus, according to the World Health Organization, typically causes high fever and joint pain but is rarely fatal. However, in this case, Ball was unable to recover.
“I’ve always heard of freak accidents of people dying suddenly and out of nowhere,” Ball’s son Josh wrote in a Facebook post. “I never thought it would happen to my dad.”
Josh also posted that McIntire was with his father to the very end, making sure he had a chance to talk with his family by phone before he died.
In another post, Josh calls McIntire his family’s “Joseph of Arimathea,” referring to all the ways he continues to help the family as they work to bring Ball’s body back to the U.S.
“As Joseph of Arimathea took the burden from Mary by caring for the body of Jesus Christ in his death, Steve is doing so for us now,” he wrote. “In this terrible grief we have, Steve is one of the greatest blessings from God.”
A memorial service will be planned, but for now the family is focused on doing what is necessary to bring their husband and father home.
“There is much I want to say,” Josh wrote. “There are lessons I desperately want everyone in the world to hear about Keith Ball. But now is a time for mourning.”
Source: christianchronicle.org