Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Gar­den­er Bud­dy George and his sons Mar­cus Budy and Je­re­mi­ah George were re­mem­bered as lov­ing, God-fear­ing and hard­work­ing in­di­vid­u­als dur­ing their fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day.

Their sealed cas­kets were po­si­tioned side by side at the Pi­o­neer Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church in Cou­va, as a small gath­er­ing of rel­a­tives and friends paid their fi­nal re­spects. A wreath was placed on each cas­ket with a tag bear­ing their names.

There was al­so a po­lice pres­ence at the fu­ner­al, which was held more than a week af­ter the 59-year-old fa­ther and his two sons, ages 37 and 20, were shot to death in their camp in Ma­yaro, to­geth­er with their close friend De­on Men­doza.

Bud­dy George’s two daugh­ters and one-year-old grand­son es­caped un­hurt dur­ing the bloody at­tack by gun­men.

Hold­ing back her tears yes­ter­day, Lau­ren George de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy for her fa­ther and two broth­ers.

“With a heavy heart, I didn’t know I would have had to say my good­byes so soon.”

She said Budy George was not just her fa­ther, but a fa­ther and a great leader to every­one.

“He was al­ways in­spir­ing, en­cour­ag­ing and mo­ti­vat­ing oth­ers not to lim­it your­self in any as­pect of life,” she told the con­gre­ga­tion.

While they may nev­er un­der­stand why they were mur­dered, she said they know, as Chris­tians, that God has a plan and they have to hold the faith.

De­scrib­ing him as a man of vi­sion, Lau­ren said her fa­ther was a bea­con of light in her life and taught his chil­dren to be God­fear­ing.

“Dad­dy, you taught your chil­dren all that life has to of­fer. I am proud to call you my dad­dy,” she said.

De­scrib­ing Mar­cus as her ride-or-die part­ner, Lau­ren said her broth­er was “one of a kind” with a kin­dred, kind and gen­er­ous spir­it.

“Words can’t ex­plain what a great broth­er and per­son he was. He im­pact­ed so many lives,” she lament­ed.

Lau­ren said words could not ex­plain how much they miss her younger broth­er Je­re­mi­ah.

“You touched your fam­i­ly with your ded­i­ca­tion de­vo­tion and mo­ti­va­tion. How you were de­ter­mined to work hard to bet­ter your life and your fam­i­ly’s. You’re tru­ly a kind and car­ing and free spir­it,” she said.

She al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Men­doza, whom she de­scribed as a broth­er to her sib­lings and son to her fa­ther.

“He was kind, car­ing, very hard-work­ing and a fun per­son to be around. You will nev­er be for­got­ten. Love you and con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly in this trag­ic time,” she said.

De­spite los­ing their loved ones through what was de­scribed as the “ghast­ly acts of evil men,” of­fi­ci­at­ing pas­tor Don­nie R. Bal­go­b­in urged the be­reaved fam­i­ly to put their trust in God.

“Yes, our emo­tions over­whelm us. It is a nat­ur­al de­sire for us to want jus­tice, to seek out re­venge as we seek to come to grips with such tragedy of lives, but that must not di­rect our lives and cause us to be­come ca­su­al­ties too. You see, God has the so­lu­tion to the prob­lem.”

He told be­reaved rel­a­tives and friends that just like the Sav­iour when he was cru­ci­fied, they too could for­give “those who caused such tragedy” in their lives.

“Jus­tice wouldn’t ease the pain. Re­venge wouldn’t ease the pain but the love of God can ease your pain,” he added.

Ad­vis­ing them not to al­low cir­cum­stances to de­fine them or di­rect their life, he said the Lord was the on­ly one who could di­rect their lives and give them peace.

Budy George and his two sons were buried side by side at the St Mary’s ceme­tery in Freeport.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Bud­dy George, 59, Mar­cus Budy, 37, Je­re­mi­ah George, 20, and De­on Men­doza, 29, were shot and killed by six men dressed in po­lice op­er­a­tional wear who in­vad­ed their camp lo­cat­ed about half a mile off Basil Trace, Bris­tol Vil­lage.

The four men were shot in front of George’s two daugh­ters and one-year-old grand­son.

Ini­tial re­ports are that around 12.30 am, they were asleep in the camp when they heard shouts of “po­lice, po­lice” and saw the six sus­pects armed with firearms. The sus­pects or­dered the men to lie face down on the ground and shot them be­fore es­cap­ing in a pick­up van.

The fam­i­ly lives in Cou­va but George moved in­to the camp some time ago af­ter be­ing threat­ened by peo­ple who want­ed him to pay pro­tec­tion tax. The fam­i­ly grows co­coa and oth­er crops and rears chick­ens and ducks. They al­so own a con­struc­tion firm.