Learning to Recognize God's Amazing Work In Our Midst

In March, April, and May of 1999 I had the unique experience of getting to experience the hand of God at work. The events I am going to describe occurred so rapidly that it took awhile before I put the pieces together to realize how extensive the work of God had been. The events I am going to describe also completely transformed my understanding of how God works, the importance of prayer, and the importance of listening to God.

The story begins in late March, 1999 when I responded to an email sent by a woman from Paducah, Kentucky named Karen.  I was working as the Youth and Family Minister at a church in Denver, Colorado and handled all the church’s email correspondence. She sent the email to a group of churches in Denver saying she was going to be in town doing a conference and was looking for a church to attend on Sunday April 18, 1999 that was close to her hotel near the old Stapleton airport. I responded to her email and told her we were the farthest church from the old airport but we were the best so she should visit us. She sent back a thanks and I didn’t think much more about it.

About six weeks later after the Sunday morning worship on Sunday April 18, 1999 I was walking through the church foyer which was almost empty. As I walked past a woman on the phone at the guest booth turned around and asked what the address of the church building was so she could tell a taxi where to pick her up. I told her the address and then asked, “Are you Karen?” She said “Yes”. I told her “I’m Tim, it’s my fault you are here so forget the taxi and let us take you to your hotel.” She argued for a moment and then said o.k.

 Michelle and I gathered up our two children, got in our minivan, and headed for her hotel which was about 25 minutes away. As we drove we asked why she was in town. She explained how she was in town doing a school safety conference and then she went on to tell how she had coordinated the aftermath of the school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky for both her school district and her church. When we pulled into the hotel parking lot around 1:30 PM she said, “If you ever find yourself in a situation where one of the students in your youth group is involved in a school shooting these are the 5 things you do on the first day.” She proceeded to tell me the five things I should do and then said “If you ever need me here is my business card.” I said thanks, threw the business card on my dashboard thinking I will never need that and we drove home for lunch.

At that time I took Tuesday’s off and kept Madison and Matthew at home with me. On Tuesday April, 20, 1999 I was planning to lay sod in the back yard of my house in Highlands Ranch. However when I got up I discovered my yard was covered with a few inches of fresh snow so I canceled the sod delivery and changed my plans for the day. I decided to take the kids with me and go into the church office on my day off to get a few things done. On the way I ran through the drive through at a Burger King to grab the kids and I something to eat. While I was waiting in the drive through a news bulletin came on the radio that a shooting was reported at Columbine High School.  I bristled up and immediately brought to mind which students in my youth group attended Columbine- 3 students, 2 of whom were on my Leadership Team which was a group of students I was mentoring as leaders of the group.

I drove to the church office which was about 3 minutes away, got Matthew and Madison set up eating, and turned on a radio. A few minutes later a buddy of mine, Alan, who was the youth minister at the Littleton Church of Christ called and asked what I had heard about the shooting. We decided to call some of our families who had kids at Columbine to see what we could find out and then talk to each other again. I was not able to get in touch with any of my families but he was able to get in touch with one person who said it was bad and we should get over there. We agreed we would head over there immediately. I got the secretary to watch my kids, grabbed the church van and headed for the school.

The trip there was surreal. The roads were jammed from every direction with emergency vehicles, fire, police, SWAT, bomb, ambulances, fire, sheriff, plus other unmarked cars with lights flashing. In addition to all of this was a jam of adults rushing to the school to retrieve their kids. The radio began announcing that all adults coming to pick up children should go to an elementary school just down the street from Columbine so I got out of the traffic jam and took a maze of back roads to get to that school. When I arrived it was pandemonium. There were hundreds if not thousands of adults swarming the elementary school along with a rapidly expanding group of news media trying to interview anyone they could get their hands on.

Within a few minutes of arriving I had found the youth ministers from Littleton and Lakewood along with the parents of my students who attended Columbine. No one knew what was going on or where the students were. Slowly a few students were trickling in who had walked and the rumors rapidly spread of the chaos that was going on at the High School. This created a panic on the part of all of the adults to locate their students. Before too long school buses started showing up filled with students who looked like they had just come through a war. Shirts were ripped, faces were terrified, and some students had blood smeared on them!  As the students would get off the buses the adults would locate students they recognized and began asking if they had seen their student. This process went on for a few hours with each bus bringing students who showed more and more signs of something horrible having happened at the high school.

It occurred to me that Karen had told me what to do in a situation like this. The instructions were specific things to do in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Keep the kids away from the media. Don’t ask how you feel, only ask factual questions such as where you were when the shooting occurred... So one by one I grabbed the youth ministers and told them what we needed to be doing. They said great and we all headed back out on our search for the kids.

Eventually we got word that one of the students from my group who was on my Leadership Team had been shot and was on his way to Littleton Hospital. However there was another student  also on my Leadership Team who we had not located so we continued doing all we could to figure out where she was. Finally she showed up on the next to the last bus to come from the high school. She got off the bus barefooted and glassy eyed and saying very little other than how horrible it had been.

Once I knew she was o.k. (meaning alive) I headed to the Littleton Hospital. The evening at the hospital was non stop. There were a number of injured students at the hospital along with all of their friends which meant there were well over a couple of hundred students at the hospital. When my student who had been shot came out of surgery he asked for me. At his side I hugged him and just let him talk. Half sedated he described how horrible it had been in the library and some of what had happened. He also told me how he had prayed and recited Psalms because he was so scared.

As the evening wore on I talked with one student after another who were struggling with all that had happened. I simply implemented the five things Karen told me to do. After midnight one of my youth ministry workers arrived and asked what he could do to help. I handed him the church van keys and my minivan keys. I told him to take the church van back to the church, get my minivan, bring it back to the hospital, and grab the business card laying on the dashboard. Sometime after 2 AM he returned business card in hand. By that time my cell phone was dead so I got on a pay phone in the reception area at the hospital and called Karen in Paducah, Kentucky. I knew it was after 3 AM in Paducah and thought there is no way she would answer but I had done all that she had said to do the first day and needed to know what to do the next day.

The phone rang and was eventually answered by a woman speaking in Spanish. I asked for Karen and she responded “si, un momento.” In a few moments a groggy Karen answered the phone. I asked her what she was doing there so late and she said “This is the only number I gave you so I knew I had to wait until you called.” I was floored but immediately asked her what to do the next day. Without hesitation she walked me through what to do the next ending the conversation with the open ended invitation that she would be there to help.

I knew a series of wild God events had occurred that day but I was so tired when I finally arrived home around 4 AM that I did not have time to process what it all meant.

The next day, Wednesday April 21, 1999, was a non stop day of interacting with students and wrestling with all that happened. It became apparent very quickly how deeply this had impacted my youth group since two of the students were a part of my eight member Leadership Team. At this point it was not known how many students had died but we did know that my student who was shot in the library witnessed many others being shot and my student who was trapped in the building until the end of the day had been locked in a closet with 35 other students and their teacher who had passed away. It was with this backdrop that my youth group got together on Wednesday evening for our normal Wednesday evening class but there was nothing normal about this class. We simply sat in a circle and asked each student to share where they had been when the shooting happened or when they learned about the shooting because there was not a single person in the youth group or for that matter in metro Denver who did not know about the shooting.

My student who had been shot was still in the hospital Wednesday evening but my student who had been trapped in the building was able to participate in the Wednesday evening youth group gathering so we let her talk. There was not a dry eye. We hugged, we prayed, and we told her how thankful we were that she was alive. Then when it was time for another one of the 8 students in my Leadership Team to talk she stammered around and finally said  she must be some kind of freak because before the shooting had occurred on April 20 she kept having an image in her mind of our student who had been shot- being shot. She went to another local high school that was put on lock down once the shooting began but the vision in her mind was without a doubt before they had been put on lock down and learned about anything going on at Columbine. All of a sudden it was on my heart to ask her what she did with the image she had in her mind when they announced at her school that there was an incident going on at Columbine and they were being put on lock down. She told me that she left the class she was in, snuck around the school to gather up her Bible club, and went to the auditorium to pray and specifically to pray for the student she kept seeing in her mind. As we put the timeline together it became very apparent that she and her Bible Club were at another local high school praying for God’s hand of protection upon Columbine while the shooting was still occurring.

The story of this student is even more significant when her spiritual passion to follow God is taken into account.  A challenge that I had given to all of the students in my youth group but particularly to the students in my Leadership Team had been to start off every day making themselves available to be used by God however he needed to use them that day. Most of the students thought this was a good idea and would occasionally do that but this student would faithfully start off every day asking God how he needed to use her that day. And not surprisingly there was something always happening. It was not uncommon for her to call me and say someone was asking her questions about God that she couldn’t answer so she would ask me to talk to her friends. Through this process she already had a couple of friends who had accepted Christ. And it is significant to realize this was in an environment in Colorado where Christianity was viewed as a crutch for weak minded people.

I wasn’t sure what to do with her vision and prayer but was blown away by the reality that it was so important that God be invited into the situation of the shooting at Columbine that the Holy Spirit had intervened by giving a vision to a young woman who was willing to listen and do what was needed. In subsequent years I began to read the Jefferson County Sheriff’s report from the Columbine shooting and I am convinced the Bible Club at a nearby High School played a significant role through prayer in minimizing the number of students who could have been killed.

These series of events alone would have been enough to transform my understanding of the importance of prayer and listening to God but there was more to come!

It came to light sometime in the next few days that a young man who had been shot in the head in the library next to my student only had two memories from the shooting; waking up realizing he had to get out of the library and word for word the prayer my student had prayed while the shooters were wandering through the library killing people.

Toward the end of the week it was announced that a large memorial service would be held Sunday morning in the parking lot of the mall near the high school. This event required security clearance through the governor’s office for injured students, their families, and the families of those students who had been killed because dignitaries from Washington D.C. would be on hand to offer their condolences to everyone. The dignitaries included Al Gore and Colin Powell. My student who had been shot wanted to attend but he also did not want to miss Sunday morning worship since this would be the first time our entire church had been together since the shooting so we worked out a plan that I would drive he and his family in the church van to the service and then take them home afterwards.

The Sunday morning worship assembly was a tearful time for our church to draw together and try to comprehend what had happened and celebrate the fact that God had intervened to protect all that he had protected. After the worship assembly the student who had been shot, his parents, older brother, and younger sister all drove to the mall. Once we arrived at the mall we were met at the edge of the parking lot at a security checkpoint where a representative from the Colorado governor’s office gave everyone their security clearance tag which was a large silver sticker that was placed on the chest. I did not receive a sticker and was told that I could help get my student to the door but at that point the Secret Service would instruct me where to go since I did not have a badge.

My student was in a wheelchair and required assistance out of the church van and up the steps going into a side door of the theatre. At the top of the steps were two Secret Service officers wearing a black suit, sunglasses, guns popping out from under their jacket, and wires running from device to device all over them. But instead of steering me away the Secret Service officers sternly instructed me to hurry and assist my student who had been shot into one of the theatres. So I did.

Once inside the theatre another set of Secret Service officers instructed us to sit down and within a few moments the governor of Colorado entered the room and went down front to offer his sympathy for all that had happened and explained the process for meeting dignitaries from Washington. Once the governor finished speaking I turned to the older brother who had  graduated from my youth group a couple of years earlier and asked him what I should do since I didn’t have one of the large silver security clearance stickers. He looked back at the officers near the doors who had all eyes trained on the crowd and suggested I should probably just sit still and not draw attention to myself. So I did.

We were then dismissed from the theatre to meet Al Gore and Colin Powell in a black velvet tent which was set up in the concession area. Exiting the theatre I realized I had now passed 4 sets of Secret Service officers who had all looked me over as I passed and were not concerned that I did not have a clearance badge.

Standing in line in the hallway of the theatre I began looking around and realized everyone present was an injured Columbine student, their family, or the family of a student who had been killed. I knew who everyone was because I had spent the day at the elementary school waiting with all of the families for their student to arrive and then had been in and out of all of the hospitals throughout the week. I was the only non family member who was present and I didn’t have a security clearance badge! That is when it struck me that there was something weird going on that was beyond human error so I began to pray asking God why I was there and if he needed me to start ministering to everyone present since I was the one person not grieving the injury or loss of a family member. When I stopped praying there was suddenly a message shouted at me that was like a large wave crashing over my head at the beach. The message was simple and to the point. “Shut up and pray. I put you here so you can pray.”  I stood there dumbfounded and wondering what had just occurred.

But before I had too long to ponder it was our turn to go into the black velvet tent. Inside the tent dignitaries were lined up on each side of the tent with Secret Service standing behind them. Each dignitary would give a personal hug and offer words of condolence. When it came my turn Colin Powell hugged me in a Mufasa like bear hug and then I turned around to be greeted by Al Gore.
Before Al Gore said anything to me he put his hands on my shoulders, stretched me out at arms length, looked at my chest, and asked who I was. When he said this the Secret Service officers stepped forward and had a look of surprise as they realized I did not have a security clearance sticker on my chest. At that moment my stomach dropped like I had jumped off a cliff and I thought, ‘this is where I die!’ Time seemed to stand still.  I replied that I was his youth minister and was here to help him out. But what happened next was amazing. Al Gore pulled me up into a close embrace and then pulling me back face to face told me how wonderful my commitment to serve and care in the name of God as his youth minister was.

I stepped out of the tent with my mind swirling. I was guided with everyone else down a side hallway and out an exit door of the theatre to a secured area of the parking lot where the family would sit for the memorial service. The secured area was a section fenced off with chain link and razor wire that was at least 10’ high with a line of Secret Service officers standing watch all around. Beyond the fence and razor wire was a crowd estimated to be around 80,000 people that ran to the edge of the parking lot in every direction and even surrounded buildings near the street.

We were seated and the 2-3 hour long memorial service began. I looked around at all of the families seated and realized I knew all but a small handful of people present so I began one by one praying by name for each and every person there. Throughout the service everyone was crying and wiping away tears. The families cried for their loved ones. I cried because I was overwhelmed that God chose me. He chose me to pray and see deeper inside the crazy ways in which he was working in a horrible situation. I was overwhelmed with this God who I was beginning to realize I knew very little about.

In the coming weeks and months more and more information slowly came to the surface. And more testimony to the significance of prayer also began to surface.

When my student’s backpack was recovered from the library it was full of bullets from the semi automatic gun the shooters had used. These bullets are what killed people. My student had been shot in the legs with a sawed off shotgun. When the shooting began my student immediately knew he had to pray and watch everything that went on and he had to put his backpack on his chest. His backpack had all of his books so it was thick and made a bullet proof vest. If the backpack had not been on his chest he would have been shot in the chest and killed. If he had not kept his head up watching everything while he prayed the bullets would have hit his head instead of lodging into his textbooks. When I learned of this story I immediately thought back to the girl from my Leadership Team who had been praying while the shooting was going on.

It has taken me years to process all of this. And quiet honestly these are only the highlights. The story, if told in full, would be a book! But this series of events forever altered my understanding of God, how he works, the incredible significance of prayer, the importance of listening to God, and how important it is to be willing to be used by God.