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drowning

   On Tuesday morning a group of youth and families from our church decided to go to the beach to celebrate for Holy Week. Tuesdays are our off days on the property so we were actually traveling in another part of Nicaragua with the World Race group that is here working with us. Several of the youth went out swimming and while they were in the water they were pulled out by strong currents and stuck in the waves. None of the kids are really strong swimmers. A few of them were about to drown and others were desperately trying to reach them; many of them getting sucked into these same currents themselves. So now you have drowning kids desperately trying to save other drowning kids. There were a total of 8 youth who almost lost their lives. Some were pulled out by youth. Some were pulled out by random people. Some were thrown back to the shore by giant waves that the Lord Himself sent. But Anthony was swept out to sea.

   When we received the call that Anthony had drown, I couldn’t believe it was real. I just started repeating silently “God. no. no. no. God no.” over and over as I slowly slid down to the ground. I just sat there in complete shock until Barb came and wrapped her arms around me. Then came the tears. Then came the uncontrollable sobs. I vacillated between sobbing, screaming out in anger, and the complete inability to breath. I literally cried until I made myself sick and began throwing up from the back of the truck as we raced down the road towards the beach.

   We arrived at the beach and I just sprinted towards my kids. I embraced them. We just held each other and cried and hurt together. I ran from person to person just holding them, telling them how much I loved them, listening as they cried out in anguish as they tried to explain what had happened, and mostly just sat together in our pain.  
   The youth had watched as Anthony was pulled out beyond their reach. One of our youth, Emerson, actually had grabbed Anthony’s hand at one point trying to pull him back in, but the current was too strong and just pulled him out even farther beyond their reach. For another moment after that, they could still see him struggling against the waves. Then another wave came pushing him under and they all lost sight of him. It’s now been close to 40 hours and his body still hasn’t been recovered.

   Our youth are completely devastated. I long to comfort them with the Lord’s comfort, but the truth is that I’m barely holding myself together. My heart is so completely broken right now. Anthony is my little brother. I love him more than I could ever explain. Ever since my first trip to Nicaragua, I have thought of Anthony like my little brother. I have seen him grow and change over the past three years. (To read some of my first stories with Anthony, read Raising Up Powerful Men & Reaching Past the Facades). When I first met him, he was a kid that had no dreams and no relationship with the Lord, and I saw him transformed. I saw him baptized. I saw him begin to dream. I saw him believe the Lord’s promises in Jeremiah 29:11 (the verse I had spoken over him in my first time here). I saw him really begin to walk with the Lord in real ways. I spoke truth over him. I hugged him. I comforted him and gave him advice when he had problems with his family, school, or friends. I laughed at him about his crush on the girl that works at the food stand at the park. I battled for him in prayer and called him out when he side-stepped the Lord’s path. I loved him like he was my own brother.   

  I’ve listened again and again as the kids have recounted what happened that day. It was literally kids who were drowning attempting to save others who were drowning. That’s how I feel emotionally. I sat there tonight in a room full of kids grieving, surrounded by more hurt than I have ever seen in one place. And it felt like drowning. It felt like drowning in a sea of sadness and hurt. And I feel like one drowning person trying to save another; trying to hold them up to catch their breath while the reality is that I can’t keep my own head above water.
   I feel so helpless. I feel like I have nothing to offer these kids who are hurting so much.  I have no answers for all their questions about why this happened. I can’t give them closure while the search continues. I just feel like I have no way to help them while I’ve barely made it an hour in the last two days without breaking down into tears again. How does one drowning person go about trying to save another?

   The only thing I can ask for is for your prayers. Pray for us. Pray for closure. Pray for Anthony’s family. Pray for the youth. Pray against feelings of guilt that they could have or should have done more. Pray for me.
   I promise to update everyone again when I know more. I know several of you have emailed  asking me to call you. We are trying to call and update people as much as we can, but please understand that we are hurting personally, continuing to search for Anthony, and facing a sea of mourning here among the youth. I’ll get in touch with people more personally as I have time.

To read more of this story, read closure.

30 Comments

  1. Hi Lisa, I know we’ve never met but, I’m a friend of Steph Davis, she sent the link to this post in an email. I just wanted to let you know that I am praying that the God of all peace and comfort would show Himself near to you so much that His presence would simply pour out of you effortlessly. I can’t imagine the pain….Thank you for choosing to spend your life for His Kingdom.
    Following my Redeemer,
    Yvonne

  2. Lisa! My heart hurts so much for yall. Anthony was so amazing and I know you were a blessing to be such a great big sister in his life. Know that yall are being covered in prayer from Cambodia. I’m praying for your heart. You are so strong! Love and miss you so much

  3. Lisa,

    Wow. I can’t express how sad I was to read this. I remember taking a really cool picture with Anthony with us wearing matching bandanas. My heart goes out to all of you and please know that myself and my team will be praying for Candelaria and Canto Nuevo.

    Blessings,

    PK

  4. Lisa, my heart & prayers go out to you guys. Praise God for Anthony’s transformation over the past few years and that he knew the Lord in such a real way! We are praying so much for everyone involved, and especially for you, Barb and Diego to be strong and know how to comfort the youth. Love you so so much!!

  5. My heart aches for all of Anthony’s loved ones & all the kids there. You all are in my prayers. I am truly so very sorry for such a heartwrenching loss. Grieve together, hold each other & keep pressing through the pain to the next moment. My heart & prayers are with you!

  6. Lisa,

    So sad. I was shocked when I heard this news and I know that comes nowhere close to how you are feeling. Our team and I personally am praing for you, the youth, and family. I know it’s hard to look beyond this right now. Don’t be hard on yourself. You are what your kids need right now, even if you feel like you have nothing left to offer. They are seeing the love you feel for them with every tear. Love you!

  7. Dear Lisa,

    My heart hurts for you and all of your family there. This pain can only be healed by the God of all comfort; and I know that is to Whom you have already turned.

    You have a ‘momma’s heart’, as you recently wrote, and as parents, we long to shield our children from the hurts of the world. The reality is that there are simply times we can only embrace one another with the love that He has shed abroad in our hearts, and hurt and eventually heal together.

    As you go through this with your family there, you are demonstrating to them the awesome love of our Abba Father. I believe that at times like these, He too simply holds us in His arms and loves us and comforts us and shares our deep pain – that is a part of the healing that He has for us. And you are doing that with your family even as Abba Father is doing that in you.

    You don’t have to be brave right now, sweet one…you need only to completely trust in your Father, knowing that there are sometimes things that we never know the reason for…that we never can explain. We can always trust in our Father, however, and His promises. He tells us He will never leave us or forsake us…so we know that He was with His child Anthony all through this experience. He promises us, as His children, that we will forever be with Him…so we know that Anthony is now in His eternal home.

    My momma’s heart would love to have the words to say that would make it all better for you…just as I would like to make things here all better for your momma and your dad. I am continuously calling out to the One who can do all that I cannot. I know that He will be more than sufficient for your every need. He will never let go of you during this horrendous time of grief or in the most joyous times to come. Recently I read His words from Isaiah 41:10 in The Message: “Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to hear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.”

    You don’t have to worry about holding on to Him…He has you in His strong, steadfast hand..and He promises He will never let go.

    Much love and many prayers,
    glenda

  9. i love you, i am praying for you, grieving with you…wish i could be there to hold YOU and ask for the Spirit’s covering. He is with you…I know it…try to give yourself time to cry with/to Jesus…I’m sorry I can’t be with you my dear…love you.

  11. Lisa,
    Lindsay Dobner is my granddaughter. She has asked us to pray for you and yours which I will do.
    What a blessing that Anthony met you and your team and was baptized. You KNOW that he is with the Lord now and forever and that you WILL see him again.
    I live on the Atlantic Ocean in Cocoa Beach, FL. We have riptides here that, sadly, result in drownings. I believe that one thing you can do for the youth is to train them to react correctly to an undertow or riptide by swimming parallel to the shore until the ‘rip’ has diminished. I can’t begin to know how you,, Anthony’s family, and your youth group must be suffering right now; however, being proactive to prevent this from happening again, might aid in your grieving process. Remember that God loves you ALL and so do I!
    xoxoxoxoxo,
    Sassy (Lindsay’s name for me)

  12. Lisa I am devastated to hear about this tragedy. I pray that the Lord gives you strength in this time of loss and mourning. If there is anything we can do let me know.

  13. Hi Lisa,
    I don’t know you personally but I am a friend of a fellow racer of yours Katie Rowland. I am so, so sorry that you lost your friend and little brother in this horrible accident. I have several younger brothers/sisters in the Lord that are close to me like it seems Anthony is to you and I can’t imagine having this happen to them. I’m so sorry, sister.
    Now, I want to remind you of the faith that you and I preach, because it is our hope.
    Hebrews says that it is appointed unto men to die once. You and I will also die in merely a few years or decades.
    That’s why you went to Nicaragua in the first place- because we are preaching about something that will not come to pass fully until after death.
    Right now Anthony is receiving one of the rewards of his faith- beholding the beauty of the living Jesus in heaven with his naked eyes. Psalm 17 says, “When I awake, I will be satisfied with your likeness.” Right now, your little brother is more satisfied than you have ever been, gazing upon the splendor of the one seated on the throne with all those who have believed throughout history. Psalm 16 says that at Your right hand there are pleasures evermore. The pleasures Anthony is experiencing are unlike anything we have ever known here in this age.
    Soon, you will join him and be with him. You will see him again as we await the end of the age.
    I don’t know how it all works. But at the end of this age that we are in now, the earth and heaven will be renewed and united. The glory of the Lord will be the light that lights up the world.
    I have seen this in a prophetic vision. I was hiking with a friend through the new mountains on the new earth. We were on a journey of several months, writing a book about these new, unexplored mountains. The sky was a lavenderish purple. I don’t know if that is exactly how it will look. I just know what I saw in my spirit that night as I prayed fervently about a friend that I missed. We hiked down out of the mountains through a wheat field. There were African women drying colorful silk sheets and garments in the sunshine as my friend and I talked and laughed. The women were singing.
    When the New Testament talks about “death” for believers it doesn’t use the word “death.” It uses the term “to fall asleep.” I don’t know what this means because Jesus says to the man crucified beside him, “today you will be with me in paradise.” But I know that Paul is stressing over and over that if we really believe our faith, we don’t have to mourn like the world mourns.
    The Lord sees your pain and wants to bring comfort to you. This world that we live in is fallen and corrupt, so that things happen that should not. The tides of the ocean are supposed to be safe to play in, but they are not.
    This is why the Lord will renew the earth. Romans 8 says that all of creation is groaning and longing for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
    I have to be honest and say that I don’t understand the book of Genesis and the Adam and Eve story with the talking snake. But when I look at the world and I see your little brother swept out to sea, and I see the tsunami in Japan and the evil governments of the earth, and even the tornadoes that killed my friend’s neighbors in my city just this Saturday and completely destroyed her home, I know that things are not as they should be. This isn’t supposed to be like this!
    However, as I have seen the faithfulness of Jesus in my own life, I know the Gospel to be true. I know that in this world, in this age, things do not happen how they are supposed to. The Lord enters into our suffering with us and is crushed for us, instead of waving his hand and making it all better so that no one dies. I don’t understand why it works that way, but that’s what he did.
    However Anthony is not dead, but only asleep, although I believe that his soul is not asleep. And when the earth is renewed, we will all live together forever and ever. I will even meet you and hang out with you. I close with the words of Paul the apostle:
    1Co 15:13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
    1Co 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
    1Co 15:15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
    1Co 15:16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
    1Co 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
    1Co 15:18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
    1Co 15:19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
    1Co 15:51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
    1Co 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
    1Co 15:53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
    1Co 15:54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
    1Co 15:55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
    1Co 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
    1Co 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
    1Co 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

  14. My heart grieves with you. I have seen your blog and the deep love and affection you have for Anthony & the youth there. The way you have given of yourself tremendously for them is so beautifully Christ. All of this carries an eternal weight in glory far beyond compare. Praying for you all.

  15. Mourning with you, oh dear friend…You are deeply loved as are all those precious children you love so much.

  16. I just talked to Davis & she told me what happened…I’m so sorry. My apartment-mate knew about Anthony from other missionary friends that visit. But, it was just now while in the living room, we put the two together. I know more prayers and comfort during this time is on the way for you. I love you.

  17. It’s right to be sad together. That is what we need to share. I am so sad to feel it with you all but so blessed to have felt the deep love that invites this pain. I love you so much and am so proud of you. Can’t believe that you were able to send this out to help all of us who want to be a part from a distance!I am always proud of you. God’s grace is huge on you this month sweetie!

  19. Lisa,
    Im praying for you guys. I know it hurts sister but I pray for God’s comfort and peace to surround you. My heart is hurting along side you. Love you!
    Jessie

  20. Lisa, Nothing I can say will be better than what has already been said here. Larry and I have very heavy hearts and are praying for and with all of you. Your tears and sorrow are the best balm you can give your kids now. Crying and grieving together is good. May God surround you in His love.

  21. I hope you are still planning on coming and spending some time here with us in May. Love you Lisa

  22. Hey Lisa, I’m so sad to hear of the loss of Anthony. My heart is breaking for you, and I’m praying for you!

  25. I don’t have much to say, but I do know you are there for such a time as this. Your heart is evident and will touch those in this hard time. You are a Christ they must see.

  26. So sorry to read of this loss Lisa! Know that we are praying for you and the others.

  27. I am so very sorry for the loss of Anthony. I am praying for all of you.

    Psalm 34:18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
    and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

  29. Lisa

    Like you, I have no words and no answers. All I have is prayer and our Lord. My heart has been very heavy for this crisis and continues to be. I pray that God comforts you, the rest of the team, Anthony,s family, and his friends. I pray that God gives you the right words and strength. I pray that some how something good can be seen in this.

    I rejoice in the fact that Anthony was able to come to know Christ and obviously made a huge impact on many lives during his short time on earth. I rejoice in knowing that Anthony’s beautiful smile isn’t gone forever but rather has moved on into eternity in heaven with our Jesus and that one day we will see him again.

  30. hurting with you. thank you so much for this blog, and the others you referenced as well. i miss him like crazy. it helps knowing how much he’s grown…

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