Sad News

(I'll get back to the Traveling Tips...I've been sidelined a bit due to a sad event over the weekend.)

Our youth pastor committed suicide on Sunday afternoon...36 years old...his wife is 30 and they have 5 children. We were at a Sunday School Super Bowl party when the host who is on staff at church got the call from our senior pastor.

He had been suffering from severe anxiety and depression since his youngest daughter started having several undiagnosable major health issues. (she's adopted which makes family medical history difficult) He had recently begun taking anti-anxiety medication with dangerous side-effects. His marriage was suffering from stress.

We saw and talked to him Saturday night after church. I waved Sunday morning while on my way to Sunday School. He was from Iowa and the Midwest connection was nice. Walt and him would razz about sports...he was a Colts fans. We would see him around Surprise a lot...at the park and he was a volunteer tennis coach at one of our high schools as well as a volunteer Surprise community police officer.

He was the first person outside of our Sunday School and fellowship groups that reached out to us and made an effort to talk to us everytime he saw one of us.

Our church has been having prayer vigils this week. We went Monday night and it was comforting to see so many in our church body gathered to gain strength together but it was also really hard as so many of the youth were there. The questions and pain in their eyes as well as hearing their cries made my heart drop even lower.

Please pray for his family (Lizzy and their 5 kids), our church, our church staff, and our youth during this tough time.