Last Wednesday, I read that subtitle to chapter one in Love Does by Bob Goff. They were exactly the words of confirmation we needed to hear to send Nate on a trip North to Anchorage. On Friday morning, we bought the tickets and at 3pm he left. It was one of the best weekends of his life. But, there is so much to this story. First, let me first rewind about 6 years...
The Ferguson's are a family we worked and lived alongside for five years in Chevak, Alaska. I taught next door to Lena, the beautiful Cup'ik language arts teacher. Nate and I both worked for Harry, the fiery athletic director, who inspired all of the kids, but especially his cross-country team with his inspirational speeches and willingness to run beside them in gale-force winds. Nate taught and coached Casey, Cody, Kash and Conor, their four talented, intelligent sons. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this family in the community of the school and village of Chevak.
Our last year in Chevak, Nate was with the basketball teams and all of the Ferguson's in Barrow, Alaska. It was there, at the top of the world, that Lena announced she had late-stage cancer. This was the first time her boys had heard. Nate and the other two coaches, and the boys and the two teams and Harry and Lena cried and prayed and clung to each other. In 2010, Lena went home to be with the Lord. It was a tragedy for the village and her family.
Harry and beautiful Lena
We traveled to Chevak with Ben and Sam the following summer after Lena's death. Her pictures were everywhere. In the Ferguson home, where we were invited for dinner, there was a mixture of sorrow and determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We saw the 3 younger Ferguson boys (Casey was in Anchorage at UAA). Nate found out from Kash, the third oldest Ferguson boy, who had just graduated from high school, that he had been suffering from a rare kidney disease. Doctors told him he'd had it unknowingly for years, yet Kash had fought through the fatigue and still been an all-star basketball player and wrestler. He told Nate he felt tired all the time, but was surprised when they found out what was wrong. Kash was going to need a kidney transplant or he would not live much longer.
Kash holding Sam in 2010, looking a bit swollen from dialysis.
It took another almost two years before Kash was able to get the kidney he needed. It was his older brother Casey who was the match and contributor to extending his life. I stole this picture off of Facebook because I love the sense of love and companionship it represents between the two brothers, and best friends.
We got to go up and visit Kash and Casey, and their dad Harry about 6 months ago, right after Kash got his kidney transplant. We spent a few good hours together. Kash seemed to be recovering really well and was so excited and ready to return to his civil engineering classes at UAA, and eventually basketball. He smiled a lot. They all did. It was great to be together.
Harry, Casey, Nate and Kash with the 3 Kellar boys
That was the last time we got to see Kash. Imagine our surprise when I saw last week, through Facebook, that Kash had died. He had returned to his beloved game of basketball and suffered from a bad head concussion on Friday night. After a trip to ER, Harry was calling Kash every two hours to make sure he did not fall into a deep sleep. On Sunday evening, Kash did not pick up the phone, so Harry called his youngest son, and Kash's roommate, Connor, to wake him up. Harry heard, over the phone, Connor discover his big brother dead. It was just too much. It was so hard to believe. It had happened so suddenly just when Kash's life was getting back to normal.
When we first heard about Kash's death, we looked up the cost of tickets for Nate to fly up to Anchorage: $1200. There is no way we could afford that, so we started thinking of ways we could send our love - cookies, a letter. Nothing ever seems like enough in such a situation. It was hard to think of anything else throughout the week because, although we have not lived in Chevak for four years, God has given us a great love for these kids. Nate talked to Casey on the phone, and Casey told him when the funeral would be and asked Nate how he was holding up. I picked up the book Love Does by Bob Goff, which my friend Andrea had "just happened" to have loaned me the week before. I just have to include the paragraph that I read on Wednesday. (You'll have to read the book to learn about who Randy is that Bob speaks of):
The world can make you think that love can be picked up at a garage sale or enveloped in a Hallmark card. But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright. What I learned from Randy about the brand of love Jesus offers is that it's more about presence than undertaking a project. It's a brand of love that doesn' just think about good things, or agree with them, or talk about them. What I learned from Randy reinforced the simple truth that continues to weave itself into the tapestry of every great love story:
Love Does.
So, you see, sitting there and reading about love and thinking about the Ferguson's seemed pitiful. More than that, we were very restless and couldn't stop trying to think of something we could do. I decided to check our air miles, something we hadn't done because we used all of them two summers ago and rarely use our Alaska Airlines credit card anymore. Would you believe we had 17,000 miles and only needed 25,000 miles to fly Nate north? It would cost us $250 to get him there. Another confirmation came from Sam. He would say, no joke, 2 or 3 times a day, "I'm sad about Kash." Even Nate's teaching partner, Linda, told Nate that he needed to go. Still, it took us until Thursday night at 9pm to decide we would do it. Nate woke up at 4:30am the next morning, made his sub plans, coached basketball, then came home and we booked his tickets. We were so excited to do something, but had no idea what and how or even if he could be helpful.
Read part 2 here.
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