(This is a long post. It’s a post that has taken me many months and countries to write, not
because of its length, but its difficulty. I’ve enjoyed writing an occasional blog this year, but not this
one. This story describes, I think, the
longest day of my life, though the total hours of the day equal much more than
24. It’s my perspective and my heart on
what happened, and the truth the best I can remember it. So if you’re able to find the time to read
this, I really appreciate it, and thank you so much for your prayers and
support this year.)
For part 3, click Here (part 1 and 2 aren’t necessary for the story)
And he said,
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him,
“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
–
Luke 23:43
There’s a
sound I hear in my thoughts every now and then. It’s not a yell; it’s more than that. It’s not a scream, either; it’s less alarming than that. Maybe a moan joined with a cry, maybe a wail. It’s desperate. Anthony. Anthony. Anthony. Whatever the sound may be labeled, it’s
always accompanied with a picture of three boys throwing themselves on the roof
of a casket.
Wednesday Morning
My eyes
open. I’m not surprised, as they had
opened about a dozen times in the last 5 hours. But this is different. The sky is
a shade lighter than the last time I saw it. The sun will be up soon – time to get on the water.
The night
before, I imagined a beach under the stars. I imagined the chaos of the day making an easy transition to peaceful
rest with ocean waves in my background. I imagined laying on sand to be like laying on a sleep number mattress
already numbered to my liking. Sometimes
my imagination doesn’t disappoint. I sit
up, and my sore back assures me this is not one of those times. Even with the long day before, I only manage
a couple hours of sleep on the hard sand.
Five local
men from the church meet us at the beach, and we take a short drive to where
we’ll cast off. I recognize the boat
immediately. I’ve seen it a million times,
though I never thought of it as a boat that actually goes on the water. Just a worn, wooden beach prop in the
foreground of a Florida postcard. It’s ancient. I can still make out the slight shade of
blue-green paint, though it had long ago given way to a deep -gray, and the
only vibrant color remaining was the bright rust on the nails. I imagine a weary, wrinkled Spanish man from
a Hemingway novel applying the last brush stroke to the wood of his brand new
boat 100 years ago. The single-engine
roars. The day’s too real to escape for
more than a few seconds.
Freighters cast shadows as we sputter away from the
coast. We’re too small for them to
notice. We pass a small island with a
wall all the way around. Diego tells me
it’s the Alcatraz of Nicaragua, then points at a lump in the ocean. It’s far away, but I’m sure. We found him. I thought it would be more difficult – we weren’t on the water for more
than hour – there he is, though, facedown and long hair swirling with the
waves. My heart goes missing for a
moment, but I quickly find it in my throat. Though our mission is to find him, though we need to find him, a part of
me begs my eyes to be wrong.
Everyone stands and the boat rocks. We float closer. Anthony’s body turns into a log, his hair
into seaweed. It’s hard to distinguish
between the sighs of relief and disappointment. The owner of the boat looks for the next current, and we move along
without a beat. The second hour passes,
and eyes remain glued for any change from rolling waves. There is none, and another hour passes. And another.
We ride from one side of the coast to the other, and then
again and again. A man in the back of
the boat falls asleep as others drift in and out of consciousness with the
waves. An hour passes. The heaviness, alertness, and
excited-nervousness I had subside to regrets of no sunscreen, breakfast or
sleep. It’s not that we want to give up;
it’s that we know we’re searching for a needle in an ocean. In a wet, hot desert. Misty saltwater settles into my eyes, and I
can no longer tell if the endless blue I see comes from an ocean or a sky. An hour passes.
The sun begins its slow decline towards the West when a boat
driven by soldiers slowly floats next to us. They exchange words in Spanish, and quickly drive off. “It’s the Nicaraguan Marines,” says
Diego. “They’re looking for
Anthony.” We make one more trip down the
coast and realize the boats the Marines are in are really fast. Or maybe our boat is really slow. Either way, it’s time to go home.
“The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south
pass through; so it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.”
–
Isaiah 21:1
Wednesday Afternoon
I take a bus back to New Song, it’s about an hour ride. I walk in the door thinking of food and
bed. My upset teammates greet me with
hugs and questions. I notice the number
of hugs exceed the number of teammates, because my friends Vanessa, Erin and Denise
had come over, as there ministry for the month is only a few minutes away. “Can we talk for a minute,” asks Vanessa.
We walk to the kitchen. “You’re team is staying here another month, while the rest of the teams
go to El Salvador,” she says.
Even before Tuesday, we had been requesting to stay at New
Song for one more month. I’m too tired
to be happy about the news. She
continues.
“What if I told you I wanted you to take Erin, Denise and I
back to the beach this afternoon?”
“Why?” I ask in a comical tone.
“Because I think we’re supposed to go look for Anthony, and
I think the Lord wants you to take us,” she says.
“It’s 4 o’clock,” I reply. “I haven’t eaten today and slept for maybe two hours last night.”
“I know,” she says.
“It takes an hour to get to the beach. It will be dark soon. It’s too late to get a boat. The tide is out, so nothing will be washing up
on the beach. The Marines are looking
for him now. I looked for nearly 10
hours today and found nothing. It’s the
day before Easter – the last day of Holy Week – people will be on the beach
drunk and partying. He’s been out there
for over 30 hours now. I’m tired.” My reasons are as exhaustive as my tone in
giving them.
“I know,” she says. “I know it’s crazy and I know it’s stupid. It makes no sense. I don’t know why we’re supposed to go, I just
know we’re supposed to go.”
I tell her to check and see if Chris will go. “He can’t. You’re supposed to lead us there,” she says. We pause for a moment.
“Alright,” I reply, “Give me five minutes.”
We pay a little extra for a taxi to the beach. Sand, familiar from the night before, kicks
up with each step from my flip-flops. The sun will be setting soon. It’s too late to get a boat. The
tide is out. The Marines are still on
the water. On the beach, drunken adults
mix with playing children. Everything is
just as I said it would be.
We stand there for a few minutes, unsure of what to do
next. “I don’t think we’re going to find
him tonight,” says Vanessa. I can’t tell
if there is disappointment in her voice. “Let’s walk down the beach and just pray over it,” I suggest. The crowd dwindles the further we walk. Eventually, it’s just the four of us and the
ocean. We spend a few minutes alone,
praying.
It’s difficult to express my thoughts and feelings during
those few minutes alone. I had spent so
many hours searching. As I look out onto
the water, at that moment the ocean was not the ocean. It was not the desert, either, as it had been
earlier. It was just infinite space, a
vastness to great to understand. My hope
was as lost as Anthony.
Still, though. What
if? The question lingers in the back of
my mind, against hopelessness’ every effort. What if a rebellious tide rages against the moon? What if his body washes up in front of our
eyes? What if he is… alive? What if God is a God of miracles?
Vanessa and Erin walk over to me. The sun has almost disappeared, and I notice
the partiers are gone; there are only three men left down the beach. We should be leaving soon. Vanessa asks me to pray once more before we
find a taxi. A pointless trip.
I look at the sunset, now a thousand shades of pink and
orange, and close my eyes. I mutter a
few defeated words of prayer but stop. I
open my eyes and the three men down the beach are now standing between me and the
sunset. My thoughts immediately run to
drunk, Nicaraguan men that spotted some young, gringo women. One of them says something in Spanish, and
reaches his hand out to me. I turn to
Vanessa, the only Spanish speaker among us.
“Meet Anthony’s
father,” she says with a grin.
Wednesday Night
He saw Anthony now and then, and had always paid for his
school. He was short and stocky, and
spoke softly. Under a thick Nicaraguan
mustache was a sad, kind smile. I had
heard about him.
He lived in Leon, about an hour outside of Chichigalpa. He had a family, a new family, that he
started years ago after divorcing Anthony’s mother. New wife, new children, new home, and a new
city. But that was yesterday.
Tonight, Boanerges Jose is a father to a young boy that
needs the help of a father, perhaps one last time. And so, all day he walked down the beach,
eyes to the sea. Once he reached the
end, he turned around. And he would walk
up the beach. Then, he would do it again
– a father trying desperately to make up for years of absence on a crowded
beach the day before Easter. Perhaps if
he could find Anthony, he would forgive himself. I’ve often wondered, had he not recognized me
from the night before at the beach, if he would have walked with eyes on the dark
ocean all night long, or longer. I was
supposed to come tonight, after all.
My hand meets his and we go through introductions. Boanerges is with Anthony’s uncle, and a
friend from Leon that came with him to help. We talk about how it happened, my time on the water today and the
Marines. We talk about the ocean tide
and national news reporters that found out what happened. Then we talk about Anthony.
“How was he doing?” he asks.
“Has he learned
English? I remember he really wanted to learn English.”
“What has he been up too?”
He has no answers to the simple questions about his
16-year-old boy.
“He’s been doing so well,” I reply while Vanessa
translates. “He’s so smart, he pretty
much knows English, though sometimes he’s too shy to speak it around us. He’s been playing a lot of sports. We were playing baseball a few days ago, and he
was showing off to the girls a little bit. But, most of all, he loves American football. My friend Chris has been playing a lot with
him, teaching him how to throw a spiral, and catch the ball, too. He loves it!”
Then, God spoke. It’s
important to understand, as I previously said, that Anthony wasn’t especially
athletic to begin with, but Diego had brought a football to New Song only a few
weeks before. It was the first time any
of them had ever actually held a football. The first day I met all the boys at New Song, I most remember Anthony’s
comical lack of ability to throw or catch the ball. Even still, he loved watching it on
television, and with a football, he loved playing it.
His face transforms when I tell him Anthony loved football. Though it’s an expression I’ll never forget,
it’s one that is difficult to describe. It’s the face of a proud – no, the proudest – father. The face of a man whose past can’t effect the
way he sees his boy. The way he loves
his boy. Even through pain and absence,
his thoughts of Anthony couldn’t change, because he was a father.
“Yea, that makes sense,” he boasts in Spanish. “That makes
sense that Anthony would love football. Anthony
always was strong and athletic. I could
see him being a great football player someday.”
My mind flashes back to the boys and Anthony, trying to
complete passes.
“That’s good. I’m
glad he was playing American football,” he says with a confirming nod.
The perfect image of God the father. Shortcomings, failures, runaway attempts,
disobedience, selfishness and rebellion towards our father. And, still, He refuses to see us as anything
but righteous, beloved, holy, blameless, perfect. Strong and athletic.
We turn our backs, fail, choose to not love him, and still,
God says with a confirming nod, “That’s my boy – this is my son – he always was strong and
athletic. And with him
I am well pleased.”
On a dark beach with
a son lost at sea, healing is taking place in the heart of a father. We can’t go home yet. There’s a small pizza stand still open on the
beach, and we ask them if we can buy them dinner. The next couple hours are spent laughing and
talking about Jesus and Anthony. There are
hugs and thank yous. It wasn’t until
later that I realize I had seen a miracle.
Vanessa, Erin and Denise, along with squad mates Jeremiah
and Tiffany, agree with Boanerges to search for Anthony in the morning. After dropping them off at their house, I
walk in the door of New Song to weeping teenagers. My teammates hold kids in their arms, soaking
shirts with tears. They pray for each
other and we pray for them. We all pray
for Anthony. Lisa writes a blog that
night called ‘Drowning.’ It’s about her
own drowning.
Thursday Morning
My eyes open. Diego
gives the door a single knock and walks in. “They found him. We’re heading
over to the beach.” He leaves the room,
and that’s it. The search is over.
Fifty teenagers, parents, pastors and World Racers cram into
the back of Ol’ Reliable. Standing room
only. Diego tells us that Anthony’s body
washed up this morning. His father found
him. The ride to the beach is solemn, a
muffled cry is heard on occasion. It’s a
short boat ride down a river to the beach, and the women stay at the
truck. I never see Anthony, as the casket
arrives minutes before I do.
The river is too low, and we have to wait a couple hours to
return to the truck with the coffin. On
the beach, I meet my five squad mates, covered in sand. Boanerges had found Anthony with the sunrise,
after less than an hour of searching. When the Racers caught up with him, they spent the next couple hours
praying for him and over Anthony’s body.
“We were full of faith,” Vanessa later blogged, “believing with
everything we were that God’s will was for Anthony to live on this earth again.”
But it just didn’t happen. He never woke up and eventually the coffin came. I don’t know why he didn’t wake up. But I think back to the vision from Tuesday, when
a King took Anthony into his arms. Into
his love. That sounds like a better
place to be than here. The river rises and we move his coffin into the boat.
“For
I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas
and in all deeps.”
–
Psalm 135:5-6
One Week Earlier
Teenagers are teenagers no matter the location or culture. When
we asked the boys who had been friends the longest, the response was, well,
that of a teenage boy. “We’re not really
friends,” replied Gato. “We just hang
out a lot.”
“Yea, we go to the same church and see each other all the
time,” echoed Abel.
It made complete sense and was very confusing at the same
time.
Thursday Afternoon
Americans always do it right. “Let us show you how to do it correctly,” we
say. The coffin is carried to the truck
and we go straight to the cemetery. Shirtless men dig a hole with shovels. There is no mortician, no suit and no
arrangement. It’s odd at first, and even
slightly disturbing for some of the Americans there. But then it starts to make sense to me.
Back home, we live in denial about death as a reality. Like if we did die someday, it would be so
long from now it’s not worth thinking about. So when there actually is a death, it’s so unlikely that it’s deserving
of a ceremony. And so we dress the dead body
in black, then we dress in black. And we
make the body look good for an open casket. And we go about like maybe in that dead body, somewhere, is still a
living person.
But in nations where people will die someday, funerals are less
masquerade, more burial. Death is
treated as more than just a possibility that the person is no longer on
Earth. It’s treated like what it is, a
dead corpse. There’s a real kind of
faith involved. It’s another hot day and
men continue to dig.
Under a pavilion, about 10 feet away from the hole, sits
Anthony’s casket. The community slowly
enters the pavilion; the kids are already there. Quiet sobs echo off the metal ceiling. Emerson, Anthony’s best friend, held onto his
hair as the waves crashed and death loomed. He reaches out to Anthony once again. “Anthony!” he yells. “I’m sorry,
I’m sorry.”
Real love can transcend any relationship, any wrong, at any age,
even a teenager. Abel and Gato,
two of Anthony’s closest friends, join Emerson at the front. Though the three of them are just guys that
hang out together, they put their arms around each other, and cry as one on
the roof of the casket. In their
brokenness and heartache, they loved, and Jesus wept.
“Anthony,” Abel wails. “Anthony, Anthony, Anthony.”
Worship music begins to play softly and the cries continue loudly. Only, it’s different. Hands raise in submission.
“Jesus, Jesus, oh Jesus,” the youth cry with hands raised.
Training camp in Gainesville, Ga. My church
in Murfreesboro. On a lake in Phuket,
Thailand. Youth events. I had been part of so many powerful times of
worship. In a hot cemetery on the
longest day of my life in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, I saw the most heart-felt,
life-giving worship I had ever seen. But
the hole was finished.
They carry the casket and lower it in the ground. After a prayer, Abel, Gato, Emerson and a
couple of the other boys from the church pick up the shovels. With tears left back at the pavilion, they
bury their friend. If finding Anthony
on the beach was closure, burying him was the opening for a life without
Anthony. And for some, for the first
time, a life with Jesus.
Everybody goes home soon after. We watch a silly 90s movie – Hook or Home Alone – and the day is over.
We know that in all things God works for the good of those
that love him. I visited Haiti a few
months after one of the most devastating natural disasters in history and saw
lives redeemed. There were millions of
others I didn’t see. Without the
earthquake, it may have never happened. Sometimes
we don’t see the mysterious ways God works when bad things happen. This time, though, we did.
I often think of the things I learned during that long Nicaraguan day
in April. It’s difficult to answer,
though. The easy answer is: something
changed in me. And on this trip, when
something changes in me, it’s not really because I learned something. Learning
something can only change your mind. It takes
more than that to change.
In Ephesians, Paul writes, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints.” To change, it takes a Father that would wander endlessly on a beach for his son.
My eyes opened.
“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon
as the end of the ocean.”
