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Into Glory (Posted Oct 27 2005) Kathy Taber - Coworker I don’t want to forget Julie’s smiling face or the special person she was. Julie loved everybody and everybody loved Julie. She was someone who seemed to be able encourage and entertain everyone. She had a zest for life and a contagious smile that you never wanted to forget. She had lots of friends--young or old she made them all her friends. She tried everything, was excited about everything and everybody, and made others enjoy life too. She was so interested in people and hearing their stories and learning all about them. Some of the comments said about Julie were, “When I had a bad day I would go talk to Julie and she would encourage me.� “When I was struggling with teaching again, Julie would say, ‘Keep up the good work, God and I are proud of you.’� Or “Julie was like a daughter to me.� “Julie may not have lived long but Julie really lived.� “Julie helped students to understand English in ways they never could before.� And all that in just three short weeks. Julie also had a great desire to know how God was going to use her to serve him. She talked about every issue that might affect this such as her ethnicity, interests, abilities, even what she considered her faults. She had come to the conclusion that she would join SIL and let the Lord lead her in whatever way He had for her. I started running with her because she was looking for a running partner. We had such a wonderful time of talking and fellowshipping every time we ran, but when she was ready to stop she would say. “That is enough for today.� We’d stop there and so it went. On August 22nd I was supposed to leave the country to record the Luke video in another language. I went running with her one last time before I was supposed to get on my flight. I met her early in the morning outside her gate. We went running and were having our regular conversations. Once again she was asking all kinds of questions about me, about my wrapped up leg, about growing up in Asia, about my family and where they lived. We were laughing, talking, and having a great time. I was moving rather slowly after only about 5 hours of sleep the night before, so at one point she looked at me and said, “Kathy, are you okay this morning?� I said “yes� and tried to speed up to catch up with her pace. We ran around a circle surrounded by beautiful flowers and a view of the river. Then she said to me, “I know that we usually go four times but this time we have just gone three but that’s enough for now.� I thought at first that she meant to stop at the end of the third lap so I kept running a couple steps but she had already stopped and said, “I mean I want to stop right here.� So we stopped and walked so as a result we were on top of the grass rather than on the cement, since we had to skirt around some construction. Then she said something about being dizzy and she bent her head forward, then she squatted, and then she just laid softly down and immediately had a seizure. Then I tried to do mouth-to-mouth to try and get oxygen into her lungs. I didn’t seem to be getting any response so I sprinted uphill to the guard and called him. He saw the trouble and immediately went and called 911 on his phone, meanwhile I kept trying to do mouth-to-mouth and trying to text on the cell phone, interspersing one with the other. After what seemed like ages but must have been in the first couple minutes I was able to get two or three breaths out of Julie and I kept going and going but there was never any other response. I kept feeling her wrists and neck for a pulse but there was none. I kept trying to keep her alive. It seemed like forever. I was calling out “Jesus, Jesus! help me!� Finally John L. came and helped me get her to the ambulance. The ambulance worked on her the whole way to the hospital. At the hospital they worked on her another 45 minutes or so trying to bring her back. Everyone else was praying to God to keep her from dying. I was praying that God would raise her from the dead! They kept working and working on her trying to get her breathing and her heart going again but to no avail. When all hope was gone they finally stopped and told us to come see her. As I stood there looking at her this tremendous feeling of love came over me like I loved her so much. I had known her only three weeks, but I felt that I loved her like a daughter. It was so hard to communicate to Julie’s family what had happened. It was such a tragedy. But when the family came they were so gracious. Sylvia (who Julie had lived with) and I did all we could to show them how special Julie had been to us and how much we had enjoyed her. We talked about the things she said, the things she did, the things that made us laugh and the tragedy that had made us cry. We told them about how easily she had gone without struggle or fear or pain. I recounted the sequence of events and what I had done. Then each of the family in such a loving way expressed that they were so happy that Julie had spent the last days of her life with people she loved, and who loved her, and having such a great time. What a comfort it was to my heart when they told me that they were so glad that I had been with her at the time of her death, and they knew that I had done everything I could. The memorial service was really wonderful, with a clear presentation of the gospel and of hope in the resurrection, and the joy that Julie had been to us all. I got it on video amidst tears that sometimes made the camera shake. Afterward I walked around and got Julie’s friends to say something to Julie’s sister and family who couldn’t be here. She wanted them so much to know the Lord. Perhaps the gift that we gave to Julie’s family was to give them a memorial service where they could see her friends, and hear the testimonies of those that loved her, and to hear of the hope and joy we have in Christ. As we in the community processed the events that had happened, although so traumatic we saw God’s hand in everything, and those whom He had chosen to be around in the last few weeks of her life, some having just come out of traumatic experiences with their own families. I recalled the devotional time that our family had done recently from a book by John Piper talking about how our purpose on earth is to bring glory to God by life or by death, and that sometimes God takes young people away for His glory and that is the purpose of their life, so that by a long life or a short life, by living or by dying, all is for the glory of God. The day before Julie died I had walked with John and Sylvia at that same spot where Julie collapsed, and as we had looked up at the sky there was this beautiful sight. On top of a cloud you could see all these rainbow colors. The cloud was covering most of the beauty so we just got a tiny taste of the beauty behind the cloud, and even that was glorious. We kept walking and staring at it. John said, “The only thing keeping us from seeing glory is that cloud.� The next day right there Julie ran into the presence and glory of God.
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