A champion, a sweetheart and a little boy with the world's best smile were put to rest on Saturday morning.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Hundreds gathered to sing, pray and grieve for the three young children, who were killed when their mother's car plunged into a lake Wyndham Vale, in Melbourne's south-west, on April 8.
Mourners filed into St Andrew's Church in Werribee under grey skies for the funerals of one-year-old Bol and four-year-old twins Anger and Madit.
The children's mother, Akon Guode, arrived surrounded by family and with a black scarf covering her head.
She sat in the church's front pew, the children's father Joseph Tito Manyang at her side, looking over the three small, white coffins.
Between them was Awel, their five-year-old daughter who was in the car when it plunged into Lake Gladman but survived.
The mourners were mostly from the South Sudanese community and sat singing the call-and-response songs of the family's Dinka culture, until they gave way for the church's bells.
Makok Kuol took to the pulpit to deliver the eulogies for his cousins, who he called "three beautiful angels".
He said the world had lost a champion in Madit, who he was certain would have one day worn an Olympic gold medal.
"Everyone who came to my family's house, you would feel the joy of having this boy run up into your arms," Mr Kuol said
"A young, energetic Australian has been ripped from us by the work of the devil.
"Madit is still a champion, he is still running. God has given him his medal.''
He remembered Anger as as a "sweetheart" with a "wonderful soul".
"Anger, now you are in heaven. You will welcome us one day," Mr Kuol said.
Mr Kuol said the youngest of the three children, Bol, was a young boy whose life had been too short, but would always be remembered for "the best smile, the laughter, and the joy he brought to all of us".
Akoi Chabiet, the children's 19-year-old half sister, read stoically from the biblical book of Isaiah and later led prayers which thanked the doctors, nurses and paramedics who treated Awel and her mother.
The service crossed borders, with the family's Anglican priest, Chaplain Jackson Soma, reading a verse from the Gospel of John.
The Catholic church's parish priest, Father Frank Buhagiar, said the children's deaths was like seeing "a flower die before it's had a chance to blossom".
Father Buhagiar thanked the many new friends who had stood with the family since the tragic crash.
"Let us weep with those who are weeping," he said.
The Lord's Prayer was read first in the monotone English accustomed to Western churchgoers and then in a rhythmic chant of Sudanese Arabic.
By the end of the service, the sky had cleared and the three coffins were carried from the overflowing church into the warm autumn sun.
Ms Guode was held by family as she left the church, while others unbridled their grief.
A couple of hundred mourners followed three hearses to Werribee Cemetery, where the children were buried side by side.
Men took turns in shovelling earth into the graves and those assembled sung a simple refrain: "Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen."