"I
tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat
falls into the ground and dies, it remains only
a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many
seeds."
(John 12:24)
We cry sometime every night.
Will the tears stop?
As many of you know, Jonathan, our
affectionate first-born son, died in an accident
on the evening of February 12. Jonathan died
instantly in the sleeping compartment of his
truck when his 18-wheeler rear-ended another
truck in slow-moving traffic. His co-driver fell
asleep at the wheel. Jonathan died five days
short of his thirty-fifth birthday, like a reed
cut down by a sickle before its time. We feel
unspeakable pain -- a void, an emptiness, a
vacuum that will continue until we follow him in
death. Children are to bury their parents. . . .
Oh, if we could have died for him! Why could not
the order be reversed?
Jonathan and Nicole married on July 18, 2003,
and in this short period of time, had two
children, Eli (20 months) and Eva (8 months).
Our younger son David commented that Jon was
"living the life of his dreams." All he wanted
from God in life was an affectionate wife and
healthy children. Phyllis Phillips, Jonathan's
mother-in-law, asked Jonathan what he wanted for
his birthday. His reply was "I have everything I
want."
He loved all people equally -- whether rich
or poor, black or white. While shy and
unassuming, he was the consummate encourager. We
remember stories of him encouraging the mechanic
fixing his truck, an African student struggling
to adapt to the USA, and his son while learning
to walk and talk. He was a man without guile --
loving, caring, ethical, a follower of "good."
He was a wonderful father, husband, brother, and
son. The words of the birthday card that we
purchased before his death but never sent
expresses our sentiment:
Happy birthday, son. You were born to be
one of a kind . . . .
Since the day you were born,
We knew you would grow up to be someone
special.
Who could have imagined that your love for
life and genuine compassion for others
would touch so many lives.
Our son's accident closed an interstate
highway for five hours.
Traffic frozen,
lives on hold,
thoughts racing.
And then, the traffic began to flow again, first
slowly, then more quickly, . . . but with a new
wisdom. Life is fragile and finite.
We are only visitors passing through this world.
Wisdom, however, lacks understanding. "Why, oh
why, God? What have you allowed Satan to do?"
We have tried to put our thoughts, our
struggles, our prayers on paper and thus refocus
life without our first-born. During our first
years in Africa, when Jon was only one year old,
we heard the blasts of machine guns nightly as
Idi Amin of Uganda eliminated all dissenters. We
talked our way through road blocks and made
final trips to nourish the first struggling
Christians among the Bakonjo people in Western
Uganda. By God's might and power 9 churches grew
up among the Bakonjo of Uganda. When our team
was forced to flee to Kenya, our partnering
elders contemplated bringing us home. But God
settled us among the Kipsigis people of Kenya
for the next 13 years, where He worked in His
mission through our team to raise up leaders to
plant over 250 local churches. We remember our
time in Uganda as our time to testing: Would we
stay? Would God use us in his missionaries in
Africa?
When we retired from Abilene Christian
University to launch Mission Alive, we
felt that Becky's declining eye-sight, a disease
we earthlings call Retinitis Pigmentosa (a
degenerative eye disease involving loss of
peripheral vision and night blindness), was our
"Uganda experience," like Paul's "thorn in the
flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment [us]" (2
Cor. 12:7). We believe that when Satan saw
captives set free from addictions and lostness
in our new church plantings in Fort Worth,
Austin, and Lexington, and developing plans for
church planting in Atlanta, Denver, Dallas,
Providence, and other places, he has hit us were
it hurts most, the death of our child to
discourage and distract.
It is the nature of Satan to hinder the
mission of God. He is the great tempter, hostile
to God, and working to overthrow divine
purposes. He is the great dragon, waiting to
devour the young Child at the moment of His
birth. God, however, caught Him away to another
land (Rev. 13:4; cf. Matthew 2). After his
baptism, he sought to turn back the ministry of
Christ through temptations before the
commencement of Jesus' earthly ministry (Matt.
4:1-11). Satan entered the heart of Judas (John
13:2) and through religious leaders instigated
and carried out plans to kill Jesus (John 8:44).
Jesus shared in our humanity "so that by his
death he might destroy him who holds the power
of death -- that is, the devil -- and free those
who all their lives were held in slavery by
their fear of death" (Heb. 2:14-15).
To some degree we have entered into the grief
of God. We know what it means to lose a son.
Because we know the battle (Eph. 6:12), we
will not turn back from the mission of God. We
know that Satan's work is manifest not only in
the world but paradoxically also in the church.
Christianity in North America has become
tainted: Too many Christians have a form of
godliness but deny its power (2 Tim. 3:5).
Missional renewal and church planting are
desperately needed in a generation in which too
many churches have accommodated to the
rationalism and life styles of popular culture
and do not readily reflect the majesty, glory,
holiness, and love of God.
We have found this death to be dirty, bloody,
foul, an unimaginable separation, soul ripped
from body. We have seen churches likewise die
because of immorality, anger, jealousy,
gossip--the lust of the flesh entering the
kingdom of God. We perceive resurrection to be
the opposite: glorious, aromatic, clean,
unimaginable connection, soul united with its
Creator. We have experienced such church renewal
through affirmation of spiritual reality, focus
on holiness, confession, repentance, turning to
and reconnection with God. The badness is eaten
up in the goodness. Morality is swallowed into
immortality. Resurrection transcends death. Thus
we not like those who "grieve . . . without
hope" (1 Thess. 4:13).
God is at work in the midst of our sadness.
Churches of Christ, black and white, were
brought together. Jonathan's co-driver Eric
Dickerson, who died a few hours after our son,
was in training to become a deacon at the
Midwest Church of Christ in Louisville. Jonathan
was a member of the Westport Road Church of
Christ across the city. Christian leaders from
the two churches came to both visitations and
memorial services and cried on each others'
shoulders. Nicole amazingly attended Eric's
funeral to give support to his wife Sherri.
Black and white, too divided in life, coming
together in death! Eric and Jonathan were loving
husbands and parents and Christian role models.
May they enjoy God's presence together!
More about the accident can be read at
Indiana wreck kills two Louisville friends; both
UPS drivers and
Semi crash kills driver, passenger.
We are thankful for the thousands of people
who have sent us words of comfort through
emails, cards, and telephone calls. You are
comforting us through unbearable pain.
Please pray for us, Jonathan's wife Nicole,
their children Eli and Eva, and his siblings
Rebecca, Deborah, and David.
www.missionalive.org
