6 Years Ago

Six years ago I lost a dear friend of mine, Laura Dowell, from a car accident. She was a freak, I think that's why we were such good friends. She was a cheerleader, an artist, loved Young Life, loved our church. God had done some amazing things in her and taught her quite a bit while we were friends. If I had a problem, I went to her. If I needed guy advice, I went to her. If I need a slap in the face, I went to her - I knew she would love me anyway. But we were crazy friends, everyone thought we were freaks. And we were. She was protective of me and I of her. We did everything together - Student Council, Young Life, Campaigners, St. John Youth Ministry, Mission trips in the summer. More than a friend, she was a true sister of mine. Both of us were being stretched so much in high school. We saw God at work in each other's lives. Encouraged one another with Scripture and Truth. I still have several of her notes to me with random verses that she would give me the hall. Somehow she always knew what was wrong and what to say. More than all of that even, we used to be able to confess everything to each other. Everything. Nothing was untouchable. She saw me at my very worst, and I saw hers - and we loved each other all the more. I haven't really had that since.

Last Friday was the six year anniversary of her death. For some reason this year was a bit more difficult for me. I was talking to a good friend about her a couple of weeks ago and I lost it. Simply lost it. I didn't realize just how much I missed my friend. Other years, the 18th has come and gone without me really noticing. But this year, I had WyldLife Club Friday night. It just so happened that the topic of discussion for club that night had to deal with sin. (Young Life has a message progression they go through to talk about the Gospel throughout the year.) And part of that topic we have to deal with the issue of why there is all this crap in the world - why do people die? Why do children starve? Why are we in such need for salvation? What are we being saved from?

For the last couple of weeks, I was terrified to do this talk. I procrastinated writing it, thinking about it, everything. I didn't want to remember the pain I felt when Laura died. Last week I finally just had to do it. Every emotion, feeling, sound, memory I still have of that week came back. I can still hear the initial sirens after someone told me she was in a car accident. I remember the pain in my body as I ran as fast as I could out to the main entrance of the school. I remember my chest heaving in and out as I gasped for air. I remember not even recognizing Laura's car that was just a heap of metal. I remember hearing her screaming as they had her on the stretcher - or was that me? I really don't know. I remember seeing Erin and Ben walking up to me, crying. I remember the administrators forcing us to go back to the school, sitting in the nurse's office. I remember my brother being there.

The next couple of days were a blur - news from the hospital sent me mixed messages, but everyone thought she would be okay. They said she had a huge gash on the back of her head and they had to shave her hair - so a bunch planned on shaving ours before she got out of the hospital. I held a prayer vigil at our church that Tuesday night. Wednesday at school I organized a chain link that students could write her notes and I would take them to the hospital. Wednesday night we had the most students at our Young Life than we had in a while. I was strong for all our friends who were really struggling. I kept telling them that God's will is so much better than what we can imagine - if God takes her, then it was her time. Think of all the lives that have been changed because of her, even in the last 36 hours.

I went to bed Wednesday night, hoping to be able to visit her Thursday sometime. I can still see 5:12 on my alarm clock when my mom came into my room Thursday morning. I can even still hear her words, "Kimi, Laura passed away this morning." I could hear the pain in her voice that her daughter just lost her best friend. That day we had a "memory" service where a ton of kids showed up at our church and talked about all of the funny things Laura did, how she impacted their life.

There was a get together at our Young Life leader's house and I brought every picture I had of Laura and a giant piece of plastic about 4 ft by 8 ft. I filled that entire thing with pictures, memories, notes of her. We had it on display at the funeral and in the youth room later. The wake was awful - seeing someone who was full of life and at the age of 17 - lying there, completely lifeless. I still shudder when I see that funeral home. On Saturday there had to be at least 1000 people at her funeral. Pastor had asked me to read an essay Laura wrote for a college application. It had part of a song called "It's Good to Be Alive" and a story of her and I in Juarez - it's below if you want to read it. It was difficult for me to read this story, I didn't even know that it existed until my pastor gave it to me on Friday. Something even possessed me to sing the lines of the song. I couldn't sing in front of that many people now.

So many people's lives were changed by Laura. I honestly think her death is the reason my mom and step dad finally began relationships with Christ, tons of other students did as well. Laura's mom. God was certainly glorified in the whole situation. But my selfish sinful nature still hates that I lost my friend - moreover that I lost my maid of honor. I lost prom with her that year or our Spring Break trip to Mexico a couple of weeks later. I lost my best friend graduation picture. I lost "Aunt Laura" for my children. I was angry at God for a long time. My faith was challenged, but strengthened. I still don't really have a friend that I feel like I can tell absolutely everything. And I do miss my friend. But it is good to be alive - to have loved her more than myself, even if it was ever so brief.

That Magic Moment
Laura Dowell

Have you ever experienced one of those little moments where you suddenly realize how incredible life is? Every once in a while, one of those realizations just engulfs me and I have to say, these are the happiest moments of my life. That amazing feeling is sometimes only a two minute, or even two second experience during which my mind takes itself out of the world for a moment and I have to say to myself, “Wow! I am incredibly content right now. Life is awesome.”

These moments can be summed up in the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, “It’s Good to be Alive,” by a group called Geoff Moore and the Distance. I think of this song in particular because it reminds me of a vivid memory of one of those moments, during one of the most exciting and impacting experiences in my life. This song was often playing in the background.

“There’s nothing in the world like being fifteen…”
I can picture it now. July of 1997. I was a fifteen-year-old baby Christian, on her way home through the hot dry plains of New Mexico after the most unbelievable week of her life. I was crammed with thirteen other smelly, dirty people in a fifteen-passenger van after a week in a large, poverty-stricken city in Mexico called Juarez. No showers, no running water, no air conditioning. We had slept on dirt sidewalks or concrete floors while two-inch cockroaches scurried over us.
It doesn’t exactly sound like a party. But for reasons beyond my imagination and control, I got the feeling that each and every person in that van was as content and fulfilled as I was.

“Your pockets are empty, but your head is full of dreams…”
Have you ever experienced that feeling of joy when all of a sudden your head fills with so many ideas and plans and memories that you’re just bursting to write them all down so you won’t forget a single thought? In the van, I recall first glancing at my best friend Kimi sitting across from me, writing furiously in her journal just as I had been doing minutes before. As my youth director, Donnie, sped through the white sands of New Mexico at about 90 miles an hour, I had to laugh at him, wearing his silly Indiana Jones hat that accompanied the stubby goatee he had grown over the past week. “It’s Good to be Alive” was playing on the radio and I was curled up with my friend Jamie as he ran his fingers along the sides of my face just like he had done every night in Mexico to make me fall asleep. I remember that feeling I had as I stared out the window at the shockingly blue, cloudless sky, daydreaming and reflecting on the trip; remembering the people I had met, the lives we had touched, the God we had served, and the mission we had completed. For those few minutes, nothing was out of place. I was hot and sticky and dirty- and I loved it.

“…of boys to be loved, of places to see…”
Mexico. Wow. What an incredibly fascinating country. At first glance of Juarez, a huge impoverished city about twenty minutes from the United States border in El Paso, I thought, “Wow. I sure would hate to live here.” The run-down houses and shops along the winding dirt roads added an overwhelming fear to the culture shock we were already feeling. But, as we pulled onto the street of the church we were staying at, I took a good look at the children playing soccer in the road and the mothers busy doing laundry in the yards. After our first night, I knew that the people in Juarez possessed a satisfaction and happiness that the people in West County would never feel. They were all so cheerful and giving. We got to know their lives even better as the 40 of us split into two teams: a vacation Bible school team and a construction team.

“It’s the best, and the worst, just my friends and me…”
My two best friends on the trip, Kimi and Kristen, and I were a bit overwhelmed with the task of being in charge of about one-hundred little Mexican children for hours each evening. Meanwhile, during the day, the construction team workers, with the help of an organization called Casas por Cristo, were overwhelmed with the task of building 2 houses in the blazing heat for two penniless families. Even with our friends to encourage us, it was intensely challenging to look past the dehydration, blazing heat, constant odor, and lack of sleep. But even so, I don’t think I’ve cried so many tears of joy in my life. And despite the constant flow of small problems like arguments, electrical fires on the roof, and trying to set an example by tolerating people with kindness after a long day of work, we pulled through, pulled together, and did our job.
Have you ever experienced the feeling of two completely separate cultures holding each other’s hands and singing the same song in their own, different languages, but to the same music? “Tu nombre lavantare…” “Lord, I lift your name on high…”

“...And we’re anything we want to be!!”
On our last day in Juarez, the pastor of the church and his wife threw a fiesta for us. It was more like a tremendous worship service with everyone in the town and everyone in our group. Each person, even including the guys who you would think were “too cool” for this type of thing were dancing and praising God with hearts and hands raised high. There wasn’t a heart in that room that wasn’t on fire for our almighty God. Have you ever experienced the joy of feeling the spirit of the God of the universe move through you like a shudder?

“I feel the wind in my face, I see the blue in the sky… It’s days like this I realize what a gift is…”

On the van ride home, I pondered what it would be like to come home after such a week; To a world so ignorant and in need of God, a world so hungry and lost. I thought I had been traveling to such a world when I went to Mexico, but I came back realizing that it was my own life that was touched by the service we did to those people. The thought of coming back to West County and the money, the cars, the cliques, and the technology, should have been enough to worry me as we headed home. But the wind, blowing through the windows as I stared at a sky bluer than my father’s eyes, created in me the feeling of a moment I’ll never forget.
That week, I climbed to the top of a mountain. It was a physical struggle, but I made it to the top, accomplished what God had sent me to do. When I got there, I saw that there were so many other mountains out there that God had set there for me to climb- so many more mountaintops to reach for. I want to climb each and every one of them.

“It’s good to be alive!!"