No one knows the exact number of Cambodians that were executed in the infamous killing fields between 1975 and 1979. Estimates range between 1.7 million and 2.5 million innocent men, women and children who were mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime.

But for Reaksa Himm, the only relevant number is 13. That number represents how many family members he personally lost in the killing fields. Among those 13 family members were his father, his mother and nine brothers and sisters. To compound the tragedy, Himm witnessed the brutal murder of 10 of his loved ones just outside a small village called Thlok.

That Himm survived the mass execution is nothing less than a miracle. But no less incredible is long trek he took from revenge to forgiveness.

Journey to the Killing Fields Himm’s road to spiritual revelation was paved with unfathomable pain and heartache. But it didn’t start out that way. In 1975, Himm and his family were living a peaceful life in the city of Siem Reap despite an ongoing conflict between the ruling democratic leadership and the Khmer Communists led by brutal warlord Pol Pot. When the Khmer army defeated the American-backed government, Himm’s world was turned upside down.

After systematically executing all leaders sympathetic to the previous government, the Khmer Rouge regime began rounding up the Cambodian people and sending them to work camps. They were told they would only be gone three days to allow the army to root out American solders they suspected were still in hiding. But days turned to months, and months turned to years.

For the first two years, Himm’s family tried to conform to the new government’s policies. They never dared say anything against the leadership.

“If you opposed them, they would usually come in the night and tell you they wanted to send you to school so you could change your behavior,” Himm says. “But to be sent to school literally meant execution.”

By the age of 14, Himm was working in the fields tending to cattle and water buffalo. Each morning he would take some rice and dried fish wrapped in a banana leaf for lunch and head to his post. But one afternoon, he met an older man who was a stranger. The man asked if he would share his lunch. As part of the Cambodian culture, Himm had been trained to respect his elders, so he gave the man half his lunch.

“Before I knew it, he had eaten all of my lunch,” Himm recalls. “I was so angry. I had nothing to eat after that. But then he wanted to tell me a story. So I sat down and listened to him.”

“In the next six months,” the man said, “all of your family is going to be killed, but you will not die. You will have to go through a lot of suffering.”

Out of the Grave A few weeks later, three Khmer soldiers came to the family’s house and arrested Himm’s father. When asked what he had done wrong, one soldier barked these ominous words: “Today we will destroy you! If we keep you, we gain nothing! If we kill you, we lose nothing! You are serving the American government! You are CIA!”

Himm had no idea what “CIA” meant, but he did know what happened to those faced with that accusation.

“That person became dead meat,” he says.

Himm ran back to his house and tried to gather his younger brothers and sisters. Suddenly the soldiers busted through the door, dragging Himm’s father behind them. At first the soldiers put Himm’s hands behind his back, but then they released him so he could carry his 2-year-old brother.

And then they took them all to the jungle.

“When we finally arrived, the soldiers began digging graves for us,” Himm says. “For the next 15 minutes, we just stood there and waited for them to kill us. I tried to hug my father, but his arms were behind his back. Then I told him goodbye. My father responded by saying something I will never forget. He said, ‘I love all of you.’ In Cambodian culture, we rarely show affection. That was the first and last time I heard my father say those words.”

Himm stood there as the soldiers made his father kneel down in front of the grave. His father was clubbed from behind and fell into the pit. Then came the screams.

“I saw every single ax fall as they butchered my father,” Himm says. “It was my turn, and I laid my baby brother beside me. Someone clubbed me from behind, and I fell on my father. Then I heard my baby brother scream so loud. Then I heard the chopping and the screaming.”

As the soldiers descended into the grave, they miraculously passed over Himm. When they noticed he was not yet dead, one of the men went back down and hit him again. Blood came through his nose and mouth. Himm began to suffocate and could hardly breathe.

“But no matter what, I didn’t move,” he says.

The soldiers left to find Himm’s mother and older sisters who were working on a farm back at the village. For the next 30 minutes, Himm struggled to climb through the bodies on top of him.

“At that time, I was just beginning to understand what had happened,” he says. “I couldn’t imagine how I could go on with my life. I was just lying there with the dead bodies and waiting for the soldiers to come finish me.”

Somehow he mustered the strength and courage to climb out of the grave. Had he stayed a few more minutes, the soldiers would have found him. Instead, he hid in the weeds and watched them drag his mother and sisters to the grave where they, too, were executed and dumped into the pit.

“After the soldiers left, I crawled back to the grave and knelt down and put my head to the grave,” he says. “I saw my mother’s face. I cried and screamed until I lost consciousness. When I woke up, it was about to become dark. I was by myself in the deep, dark jungle. That night, I decided to climb a tree and hold on to the tree the whole night. I couldn’t close my eyes. I was so scared.”

Three Promises For the next three days and nights, Himm stayed there and cried. He survived by eating bamboo shoots and wild fruit and drinking dew squeezed from his blood-soaked shirt. After serious thoughts of going back to the village so the soldiers could put him out of his misery, the traumatized 14-year-old headed away from the gruesome site in search of help.

Before he left the killing field, though, he made three promises to himself. First, he would take revenge on his family’s killers. If he couldn’t do that, he would become a Buddhist monk to pay respect to his family. And if he couldn’t keep his first two promises, he would go far away from Cambodia.

Over the next two years, Himm migrated among a succession of refugee camps that at times proved anything but safe. He also reunited with the only other surviving members of his immediate family—his older sister Sopheap and her husband, Chhounly. When neighboring Vietnam overthrew the Khmer regime in early 1979, Himm returned to the city and lived with his aunt.

By 1984, Himm decided to join the police force. His purpose in doing so was simple: It would help him get back to the village where his family was killed so he could “eradicate every single person in that village,” he says, to pay honor to his family.

But when Himm finally had the chance to arrest one of the men who had helped kill his family, he couldn’t go through with it—despite dragging the man into the forest and aiming a gun at the man’s head. Having broken his first promise, Himm then faced the harsh reality that he couldn’t keep his second promise, as the current regime did not allow young men to become Buddhist monks.

“Finally, I tried to fulfill my last promise,” he says, “which was to escape from Cambodia.”

Free Indeed Leaving Cambodia was both illegal and very dangerous. But Himm was desperate to leave his problems behind. He headed for Thailand, facing numerous life-threatening situations along the way, and eventually landed in the notorious Khao I Dang refugee camps. While there, he exchanged letters with a cousin who was living in California. Himm shared his desire to come to the United States, and his cousin, who was a Christian pastor, shared stories about his faith.

“He kept telling me about Jesus,” Himm says, “and I told him, ‘I need money, not Jesus!’”

Himm stayed in Thailand five years. His attempts to move to the United States were rejected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Undaunted, he started a vigorous letter-writing campaign to the Canadian embassy. He also decided prayer wouldn’t hurt either.

“I felt hopeless,” he says. “One night I knelt on my knees and prayed, ‘God, if you take me to Canada, I will start a new life and live for You.’”

About 90 letters later, in 1989, Himm gained entrance to Canada. He accepted Christ a year later. Then he enrolled at Tyndale College in Ontario and earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies, followed by a master’s degree in counseling and Christian education from Providence Theological Seminary.

Yet even as Himm was growing in his new life of faith, he still struggled with bitterness and hatred for his family’s killers, in addition to the depression and guilt he privately held on to because of his failure to avenge their deaths. The journey wasn’t easy, but gradually, as he studied God’s Word, passages such as Hebrews 12:15 (“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many,” NIV) helped him realize that his failure to forgive was blinding him from seeing the grace of God in his own life. 

As the Holy Spirit healed his deep wounds, Himm gained a revelation of both God’s justice from passages such as Romans 12:17-19 (“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. … ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord”) and God’s forgiving grace (“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more,” Heb. 10:17). 

“I had failed to allow God be the righteous judge,” Himm says in his book After the Heavy Rain. “Vengeance is the Lord’s, not mine. … God does not remember my sins anymore. God had cancelled all my sins, but I had failed to let go of the sins of my family’s killers.”

By 1999, Himm felt God calling him back to Cambodia. He returned to lecture on psychology at a Bible college but stayed to plant churches, including one where his family was killed. And while he had already forgiven the killers from abroad, he knew the time had come for him to take the process one step further.

Himm located the man who killed his father and siblings, the man who had clubbed him from behind, and the man who had killed his mother and older sisters. He came prepared.

“I offered each of them a camel scarf as a symbol of my forgiveness,” he says. “I offered my shirt as a symbol of my love for them. And I gave them a Bible as a symbol of my blessing for them.”

As Himm reflects on those powerful encounters, he is reminded of Jesus’ words found in John 8:36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

“To say ‘I forgive you’ from Canada to Cambodia was easy,” Himm says. “But to actually travel back and meet those killers and look into their eyes and say, ‘I forgive you,’ that was tremendously difficult. There’s no way in my own humanity I could have done that. It was only the power of the grace of God in my life that gave me the strength to do that. It was only God’s grace that set me free.”

Chad Bonham is a journalist, author and broadcast producer who has worked in mass media for more than 20 years. A regular contributor to Charisma, he recently published Life in the Fairway.

Watch Reaksa Himm tell his story of surviving the “killing fields” of Cambodia at

These Olympic athletes are boldly proclaiming Jesus in London

Dawn Harper – Track and Field (Hurdles)

When Dawn Harper shocked the world with her gold medal performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, questions about race favorite Lolo Jones (who knocked down a hurdle and opened the door for Harper’s victory) and a reporter’s suggestion that she lacked credibility made Harper realize no one had given her a chance of winning.

Growing up in a rough East St. Louis, Ill., neighborhood, Harper knows something about overcoming the odds. But her natural leaping ability and speed put her on the proverbial fast track to follow in the footsteps of another hometown hero: Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Ironically, Harper’s defining moment as a young athlete was also a turning point in her relationship with God. After injuring her knee as a high-school sophomore, her doctor said she was unlikely to run as fast after she fully recovered. With God’s help, she not only got back to full speed, but ultimately pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent track history.

“From this big ol’ globe, God chose this little girl from East St. Louis out of all the kids who have said, ‘I want to go to the Olympics,’” Harper says. “He knew that I could handle this—the knee surgery and all of the things that come with being an Olympic champion. He took the girl that no one thought would win. He chose me. He entrusted me with this.”

Kevin Durant – Basketball

 There are plenty of temptations lurking around the average professional athlete, but perhaps none sneakier and as potentially devastating as pride. Kevin Durant knows this to be true. Arguably one of the top five players in the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder forward says it’s a daily struggle to remain humble in an ego-building environment like professional sports.

In London, Durant will get his first shot at Olympic glory since his initial baptism into major international competition at the 2010 World Championships. There, he led the U.S. squad in scoring with 22.8 points per game and a team record 205 total points and 38 single-game points.

He makes sure to keep the words of Jesus at the forefront of his mind: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12, NIV).

“I always kind of pinch myself and say that any day this can be gone. When people tell me I’m great, I [remind myself that I] can always be better. I always work on what I have now. I’ve got to be thankful to the Lord for the gifts He’s given me. My gift back to Him is to always be humble and to always try to work as hard as I can.”

Brady Ellison – Archery

Brady Ellison asked Jesus into his heart when he was a young child. But it wasn’t until God saved him from dying in a horrific car accident that the native Arizonian took his faith seriously. Now the avid hunter-turned-Olympic-archer prays that God will use him and other Christian athletes as “vessels for His glory.”

Ellison has been just that as one of the most prolific Americans to pick up a bow and arrow. He has won gold medals at three Pan American Games (including team and individual honors last year) and three gold medals at the World Indoor Archery Championships (including top marks in this year’s individual competition). Ellison was also ranked No. 1 at the end of the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

He says Philippians 4:13—”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (NKJV)—has been instrumental throughout his career. “Once I put winning in God’s hands, I stopped worrying about it. Since then, I’ve gone to these tournaments and I’ve shot with no fear, doing only the best I can do and leaving the rest up to God.”

Kendrick Farris – Weightlifting

When Kendrick Farris was 14 years old, he had aspirations of eventually becoming an Olympic weightlifter. Having no idea how hard it was to qualify, and thinking athletes made the team simply by representing a weight class, he experienced a harsh reality when he fell short. Instead of competing in Athens in 2004, Farris found himself bussing tables at a restaurant while going to college full time. While at work one day, the Olympic weightlifting competition was on TV when a co-worker pointed up and asked Farris, “Isn’t this what you do?”

“It was like God was showing me where I was supposed to be, and it wasn’t bussing tables,” the Louisiana native says. “So I said: ‘Yeah, that’s what I do. I’m going to be on the next Olympic Team.’ That’s when I knew I was supposed to be an Olympian.”

Farris worked hard and qualified for the 2008 Olympics, where he placed eighth in the 85-kg weight class. Two years later, he won gold at the 2010 Pan American Games. It was during that time frame when Farris’ faith became real to him and helped guide him down his destined path.

“In 2008 I was living the lifestyle when it was convenient for me, but by the end of the year I had rededicated my life to Christ and I haven’t looked back,” he says. “I’ve truly humbled myself over the past couple of years and I’ve learned about the power we have as Christians. Jesus said we would do greater works and I believe that.”

Brittany Viola – Diving (Platform) 

Brittany Viola was an 8-year-old gymnast when she was captivated by the American women’s  gymnastics team known as the “Magnificent Seven” during the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. She had no idea her own pursuit of the sport would ultimately take her to the Olympics 10-meter diving platform.

“In a sense, diving found me,” Viola recalls. “In eighth grade, I was enjoying a free day at the pool and decided to play around on the diving boards. Doing a few of my old gymnastics tricks into the water to my feet, I caught the attention of the high school swimming coach. Not knowing that diving was a sport, I talked to my parents and experienced my first diving session a couple of days later.”

Viola narrowly missed qualifying for the 2004 Olympic team and struggled in her bid four years ago but has since become a steady force within the U.S. diving program. She won her first national championship in 2011.

As the daughter of former Minnesota Twins pitcher and World Series MVP Frank Viola, the Orlando, Fla., native has learned much about athletic excellence. But it was a serious battle with bulimia six years ago that deepened her relationship with God.

“As I struggled with my eating disorder, I would be reminded that God still loved me even when I did not love myself,” Viola notes. “His forgiveness helped me to forgive myself. His truth allowed me to replace the many lies in my head. He saw me as fearfully and wonderfully made—His perfect creation, chosen, holy and dearly loved.”

Tobin Heath – Soccer

When the U.S. women’s soccer team won the gold medal in Beijing four years ago, youngest team member Tobin Heath was surprised at how moved she was by seeing her country’s flag raised and hearing the national anthem played. Her usually mellow personality gave way to a wave of unexpected emotion. Now older, more experienced and spiritually stronger, Heath is anxious for the chance to help the Americans defend that top spot on the podium. But there’s a greater goal that drives her quest for athletic greatness.

“It’s not about that worldly outcome in terms of winning or losing,” she explains. “It’s about Jesus being known—not in a way that forces it upon other people, but in a way that lets people know how He’s transformed my life and how He’s given me purpose and meaning and love and satisfaction.”

Bryan Clay – Track & Field (Decathlon)

Bryan Clay is quick to admit that he didn’t know he could be an Olympian until the first time he actually qualified for the 2004 American track and field squad in the decathlon: “For me it wasn’t much different than a kid saying, ‘I want to be in the NFL.’ It was just a dream.”

Not only did Clay’s dream come true, he scored the second-highest number of points (8,820) ever by an American and won the silver medal. That’s when he realized he just might be one of the best decathletes in the world. At the 2008 Beijing Games, Clay bested his effort and joined a notable list of American gold medalists such as Bruce Jenner and Dan O’Brien. Along the way, Clay’s steadily growing faith has been a significant part of the journey.

“Without my faith, I think it would be very easy for me to have a family that’s in disarray, to have my priorities out of order, to make decisions that could derail my path to success. But because I have this foundation of faith, I like to believe that it’s my compass. It keeps me on the path that I want to be on. It allows me to make good decisions that bear good results. Without my faith, I think that I’d be lost and I don’t think that I’d be as successful as I am today.”

Ryan Hall – Track and Field (Marathon)

From the very first day Ryan Hall started running at age 14 he instinctively knew it would require everything he had inside himself to be successful. It took him a little bit longer, however, to fully understand God’s role in the arduous process of becoming the fastest American-born marathoner.

After briefly dropping out of college during his sophomore year at Stanford, Hall realized the results-based lifestyle he was leading was nothing but a recipe for self-loathing and depression. Since that time, the All-American long-distance runner has scored three top-four finishes at the Boston Marathon and a 10th place finish at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Though he hasn’t captured that elusive high-profile victory yet, Hall stands firm on one of his favorite passages of Scripture, Proverbs 24:16: “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again” (NIV).

“I have found that it’s not the ability to never fail that makes an Olympian, but the ability to get back up. I have found that the ability to get back up comes from my ability to stay close to God and to see myself as He sees me,” Hall says. “God has always given me the grace and strength to get back up after I have fallen. I have found that He has given me everything I need to accomplish what He has created me to be and to do.”

Jonathan Horton – Gymnastics

If prescribing the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Ritalin had been popular when Jonathan Horton was a kid, he might not have found his affinity for gymnastics. To help control their 5-year-old’s chaotic energy, Horton’s parents enrolled him in a training program instead of medicating him, and a future Olympic medal-winner was born.

After watching the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta Horton was hooked, and his top goal became making it to the Games. He qualified for the Olympic Trials in 2004 but finished seven spots out of a place on the team. In 2008, however, Horton would not be denied. And not only did it make the team, he came home with a silver medal in the horizontal bar event and a bronze medal in the team competition.

Most recently, Horton has dealt with two broken bones and a torn ligament in his foot that he injured at the 2011 World Championships. It’s been the biggest test of faith for a young man who was raised in church, but didn’t get serious about God until attending college at the University of Oklahoma.

“Without my faith, I think I would be panicking,” Horton says. “But sometimes I think that this could be a blessing in disguise. This could be something He’s put in front of me to see how strong my faith really is. Sometimes I question if this was really necessary, but then I realize that this is God’s plan and I have to overcome it and keep my faith in God. His plan is always greater than my plan.”

Jesse Williams – Track & Field (High Jump)

Jesse Williams likes to joke that his Olympic journey started as a baby. In an ironic sense, it’s true. He attended the 1984 Los Angeles Games with his family at the young age of 7 months. It wasn’t until 1992, however, after watching the Barcelona Games on TV that his dream truly took hold.

That’s also about the time Williams discovered he was a natural jumper—so much so that he would make up games where jumping was a key component so he could win. Williams gravitated toward the high jump event, for which he has captured 2010 and 2011 USA Outdoor Championships and most recently claimed his biggest prize yet with a gold medal at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea.

Williams says that his youthful commitment to Christ has helped him deal with the inherent ups and downs of competition and the lonely moments that accompany international travel.

“I know that God has a plan for me and no matter how many times I fail I know its in Gods plan,” he explains. “I never let myself get down when I have a bad performance. I use it as inspiration to work harder. I always fall back on the Word when I am feeling lonely or when something is not going well.”

Tamika Catchings – Basketball

It’s been an eventful 12 months for Tamika Catchings. Last season she was named among the top 15 players in WNBA history and later league MVP for the first time in her career. Catchings is also making her third appearance as a member of the USA Women’s Basketball Team and hopes to claim a third gold medal.

“The Olympics is one of the most exciting things,” she says. “It’s almost one of those things that even when you talk about it, you can’t fully describe the feeling—just being able to be considered one of the best in your nation.”

Catchings has overcome many adversities to get to this point. As a child, she faced hearing and speech problems, and her parents’ divorce during the sixth grade. Those struggles have given her an opportunity to share a message of hope with young people through her Catch the Stars Foundation, based in Indianapolis.

“God has taught me about patience and about accepting myself for who I am and knowing that He formed me and made me unique,” she states. “He made everyone uniquely wonderful. Every single cell, every single muscle, every single thing about my body, He created and He formed—even my personality. I never thought I’d be able to speak in front of hundreds of people and have a story and a testimony. I’m extremely blessed to have all of these opportunities.”

Missy Franklin – Swimming

Ever since her mother took her to a “Mom and Me” swimming class when she was 6 months old, Missy Franklin has proved to be a natural in the water. Now, at the ripe age of 17, Franklin can already point to her name in the U.S. and world record books. Most noted as a freestyle and backstroke specialist, she says her faith has steadily grown since attending Regis Jesuit High School.

“God is always there for me. I talk with Him before, during and after practice and competitions,” the Pasadena, Calif., native says. “I pray to Him for guidance. I thank Him for this talent He has given me and I’ve promised him that I will be a positive role model for young athletes in all sports.”

How athletes and evangelists are combining to make London’s Summer Olympics about more than just sports

Madeline Mims has served as an Olympic chaplain for 24 years. When she travels to London for the 2012 Games, it will be her seventh time to fill that role. But strangely, as experienced as the former gold medalist is, she has no idea what to expect.

“Each Olympiad has its own unique personality,” Mims says.

One thing is for certain. The Summer Olympics in London, being held July 27 through Aug. 12,  will provide much more freedom for ministry and a wider variety of evangelism opportunities than its Beijing counterpart from four years ago.

“With England being an Anglican nation, that door has been opened to make sure the religious services are filled,” Mims says. “They’re making sure they cover all the bases.”

Mims is one of four American chaplains—two men and two women—who will minister to the entire U.S. contingency. They will join 15 international Protestant chaplains to facilitate daily chapel services, one-on-one counseling and team-specific ministry. She created the United States Council for Sports Chaplaincy (USCSC) to help support American sports chaplains as they travel to the Olympics, Track & Field World Championships, U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials and other events.

At the Olympics, Mims often gives motivational talks for various teams throughout the two-week competitions. She sings and shares from her personal experiences as an elite track and field athlete who made Olympic history in Mexico City in 1968 when she became the first American woman to capture gold in the 800 Meters event.

Always, she tries to bridge the gap between herself and those who don’t always feel comfortable attending a formal gathering.

“A lot of times, the Christian girls [athletes] will encourage the other athletes to come hear the former Olympian talk,” Mims explains. “They’ll come to something like that. You may not be able to get them together to do a chapel service or anything formal like that. But you can make yourself available.”

Being available means Mims has met with the U.S. women’s volleyball team in a Beijing hotel and with the women’s gymnastics team at a bus stop in Atlanta.

“You have to take opportunities as they come,” she says. “In those situations, ministry takes place without the formula.”

In the past, Mims has spent much of her time working with the track and field team, but this year that duty will be passed to another former Olympic gold medalist, Chandra Cheeseborough, head coach at Tennessee State University. Mims will utilize her connections as the chaplain to the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock and work closely with the U.S. women’s basketball team.

High-jumper Jesse Williams is among the many athletes who understand the importance of consistent chaplaincy. He experienced the calming effect of chapel services at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, where he won the gold medal.

“It put my mind at ease before competing,” Williams recalls. “It’s easy to get lost in the world that we live in and put something like sports before God. But when you go to chapel, you’re humbling yourself and understanding that God needs to go first in everything you do.”

And though Mims appreciates the support and advocacy of the Christian athletes, she notes that their primary job is pastoral care for the entire team—not just the committed believers.

“If an athlete is a solid Christian, they don’t need you as much as the others who are struggling or trying to figure out what religion they want to embrace,” she says. “It’s an awesome opportunity to watch the Holy Spirit work in those situations.”

Beyond the Olympic Village

Outside the Olympic Village, on the London streets, numerous Christian organizations will be using the international event as the foundation for ministry to the hundreds of thousands of people who will converge on the city.

Spearheaded by its United Kingdom branch, Youth With A Mission (YWAM) represents one of the largest contingents. Its “Forever 2012” initiative is a two-year outreach that already has dispatched more than 2,000 people into various event locations. It will involve an estimated 2,000 additional missions workers during the Olympics.

YWAM, which has been actively involved in Olympic ministry dating as far back as the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, created six focus areas to effectively maximize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They include arts (drama, music, magic, puppetry and more), general mission and service (translating, greeting, security and waste management), prayer, social justice (outreaches to the homeless and others), sports (clinics, tournaments and more), and youth and children (school assemblies, face painting and so on).

“The focus areas were developed to give definition to the outreaches, and to help us target teams to outreach destinations,” YWAM spokesperson Jeremy Weightman says. “They also help hosting churches define what they want in terms of outreach teams.”

YWAM’s massive undertaking won’t be over when the Olympics end on Aug. 12. It has spent several months working with local churches to ensure that local residents impacted by the outreaches will be part of a bigger, life-changing picture.

“We believe that God wants to bring revival in the U.K.,” Weightman explains. “We want to see our short-term outreach efforts working alongside the long-term efforts of local churches … and to see long-term YWAM teams established in all the Olympic host cities to partner with all that God is doing in those cities.”

This is also the purpose behind ministry efforts led by Lay Witnesses for Christ International (LWCI). Rob Rees, the organization’s U.K. managing director for Summer Olympic Outreach, is one of the 19 invited international chaplains. Like Mims, he will work inside the Olympic Village and throughout the various venues.

LWCI is heading up a collaborative effort called “More Than Gold” with several U.K. churches. Rees is excited to see what God has planned for the local fans and the spectators attending from other nations.

“Obviously there will be far more opportunities than at the Beijing games,” he says. “Our expectations are high regarding each endeavor to reach both athletes and overseas visitors with the gospel.”

Praying to Make an Impact

Mims also plans to work with LWCI. She has partnered with the group at previous Olympics, including for its “Night of Champions” event, coordinated by LWCI President Sam Mings. It includes testimonies from athletes and performances from musical guests.

“My first ministry and my first responsibility is to the athletes in the village, but I do try to … do some outreach,” Mims says, “especially if there are some athletes that want to do some community outreach.”

One way Mims likes to do this is by locating area prisons in the host cities and taking some of the Christian athletes with her to minister to the inmates with music and God’s Word.

“The prisons are usually overlooked,” she says. “They have no access whatsoever to the Olympic Games. This is a great opportunity to mentor some of the Christian athletes that would like to be a light and an inspiration. It’s something that [for inmates] is totally unexpected.”

Mims believes one of the best ways athletes can influence the world for Christ is with those brief moments on camera, when they’re either competing or giving interviews. A group of trusted believers continually prays with her for the influence of these Olympians, who have been blessed with a sizeable platform.

“They have this moment in time, standing on a field or on a track or in a pool or in a ring,” she says. “The world is watching everything they do. How do they respond to winning or losing, doing their best or not doing their best? I’ve been praying for those who are in the body of Christ—that the light of God would just shine through them.”

Mims also prays for the media so they might ask questions that will give these athletes a chance to respond in a way that glorifies God. She is reminded of the first post-race interview she gave after her history-making run in 1968.

“I know the Holy Spirit must have led this reporter to ask this question because I’d never heard it before,” Mims says.

After the landmark victory, the reporter asked “Who do you give the glory to?”

“I just looked at him,” she says. “You have to realize that this is coming at a time when no athletes were sharing their faith on television. So I said: ‘I’m running for Jesus. That’s who all the glory goes to.’

“He looked at me really strange and said, ‘We’re not talking religion here.’ And I said: ‘I’m not either. I’m just trying to answer your question.’ And he turned to the camera and said, ‘We’ll be right back after these messages.’”

Mims laughs at the memory,  but she’s quickly sobered by the thought that her brief response went across the world. Years later she met people from the former Yugoslavia who remembered the interview and were taken aback at her open statement of faith in Christ.

American gymnast Jonathan Horton mirrors Mims’ sentiment. After winning silver and bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games, he hopes to make the 2012 team and use whatever spotlight he might enjoy as a vehicle to be a witness to nonbelievers around the world.

“That’s always been my prayer,” Horton says. “I pray every night … that He takes the platform He’s given me and uses me—speaks through me, not only through my words but through my actions as an athlete.”

Horton attends Second Baptist Church in Houston and recalls a message from his pastor, Ed Young, that challenged him to be more proactive as an outspoken Christian athlete: “He asked the question, ‘When is it right to hide your faith, and when is it right to show your faith?’ He told us that when you feel like hiding it, you need to show it, and when you feel like you’re being prideful and you want to show it, hide it.

“It would be really easy when you’re on live TV and the whole world is watching you to want to hide your faith. You want to avoid the persecution that the world is going to give you for it. But it’s in that moment when I really need to show it. That’s when I need to use my platform as a gymnast to show what the Lord has done for me.”

Chad Bonham is a veteran journalist and author based in Broken Arrow, Okla. His latest book, Glory of the Games, takes a look at biblical principles through the stories of current and former Olympic athletes.

To read about other Christian ministries and athletes at the Games click here.

NASCAR driver Michael McDowell is still behind the wheel after walking away unscathed from one of the worst wrecks in the sport’s history. His faith tells the story. 

The world of stock car racing can be summed up in one word: speed. Everything happens fast. From the shop to the garage to the pit to the track—time (measured in hundredths of seconds) is literally money for those aspiring to NASCAR greatness. So, for rising-star driver Michael McDowell it’s no surprise that his spiritual transformation has been as rapid as his rise to prominence in the sport he loves. 

In 2003 McDowell was balancing his desire to drive full time and trying to make a living as a newlywed when he lost a close friend—Ron Huber—who was also his employer and mentor. Huber’s passing served as “a reality check,” McDowell says, for what he was doing with his life. He was suddenly reminded by his friend’s death of the impact that Huber, a devoted Christian with strong ties to motorsports ministry, had quietly made in his life. Then, another employer named Tom Barnett brought real life into focus for McDowell. 

“At Ron’s funeral, Tom asked me: ‘Where are you—what do you think about life after death?’” McDowell recalls. “He left it at that. Then God, working through all of that, led me to a relationship with Christ. It was at a church service with my wife’s uncle and aunt a little while later where I accepted Him. That’s when I really understood what grace and forgiveness was.”

Faith Takes the Lead

From there, McDowell did what comes natural for any race-car driver—he moved at breakneck speed into the challenge of growing in his faith. But he also applied equal amounts of energy to his burgeoning stock car career. 

His love affair with racing started in Phoenix as an 8-year-old go-kart racer. Yet even before that, McDowell had gotten his first taste of racing by competing in a handful of BMX bike races—at the age of 3. The steady progression from his youth led him, he says, into Formula Car racing and what he thought was going to be a career as “an Indy Car driver.”

“I wanted to race Champ Car [a class of cars used primarily in the Indianapolis 500],” McDowell says. “But when the [Indy Car and Champ Car] series merged and they dissolved the Champ Car series, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for young Americans in open wheel [cars built with the wheels outside the auto’s main body].”

McDowell realized in 2007 that he had a better chance at long-term sustainability by switching his efforts to stock cars, although he had significant triumphs with open-wheel competition—including the 2004 Mazda Series championship and a pair of race wins in the Rolex Sports Car Series.

He worked his way up the stock car ranks, winning four races in the ARCA RE/MAX Series and receiving Rookie of the Year honors in 2007. Also, in three NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races for Michael Waltrip Racing, McDowell was given “seat time”—the literal amount of time spent in the driver’s seat of a race car. It is especially important for a driver who is getting familiar with a new car or track.

And even though many of his contemporaries such as Justin Allgaier, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Landon Cassill were moving into significant jobs with big name teams, McDowell was struggling to break into the top-tier Sprint Cup and Nationwide circuits.

But don’t expect the 26-year-old to complain or question his circumstances. McDowell remains grateful for the opportunities he’s been given and cherishes the relationships that have developed over time. 

One such partnership was with MacDonald Motorsports, a family-owned and operated team led by people who share McDowell’s strong Christian convictions. McDowell drove the No. 81 Nationwide Series car. In 2010, he made 30 starts and finished a season-best 10th at Watkins Glen in New York.

The team was “extremely underfunded” and operated on “literally a tenth of the budget” of the top teams, he says. The car usually ran on used tires and older engines. But McDowell felt like God had brought him and  Randy MacDonald, a former driver himself, together for a purpose.

On the Sprint Cup side, McDowell spent the 2010 season behind the wheel of the No. 46 car owned by Whitney Motorsports where he started 11 races, including the historic Daytona 500. 

In 2011 McDowell will be driving the No. 66 car for HP Racing (formerly Prism Motorsports) in the Sprint Cup Series. He feels especially blessed for an opportunity to work with legendary car owner Joe Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing) for whom he will drive the famed No. 18 car at two Nationwide Series races in Iowa. Additional races may be in the works.

“These JGR race teams have an incredible performance history,” McDowell says. “I appreciate the confidence that [sponsor] Pizza Ranch and JGR have in me and I plan to make the best of it.”

Hitting the Wall at 170 mph

But to this day McDowell’s claim to fame is a moment that most race fans will never forget and one that he’d prefer to leave in the past.

It was April 4, 2008, at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. On qualifying day, two days before the Sprint Cup Samsung 500, McDowell was preparing to take Michael Waltrip Racing’s No. 00 car out for a two-lap run. The driver before him, David Reutimann, had blown his engine and left a sizable trail of oil. About 20 minutes later, after NASCAR had applied SpeedyDry to the track, McDowell raced off pit row trying to qualify in just his second Sprint Cup race.

“On my second lap, I got up in [the SpeedyDry] and the car got loose,” he says. “We’d actually pulled the brakes back just to have more speed, which in hindsight was probably a bad decision. I went to the brake and nothing was there, so I went to the other pedal, which is the gas, and turned to the right and the thing just took off and shot up the racetrack. As I was going up the racetrack, I knew it was going to be a very big impact.”

Race officials estimated that McDowell hit the wall at about 170 miles per hour. His car immediately caught fire and started to tumble—eight times, in fact, barrel-rolling down the track.

“As it was rolling, everything slowed down,” McDowell says. “It just got real still. It felt like it wasn’t going to stop. It just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. I didn’t know if I’d made it over the fence and I was on the other side of the racetrack. I didn’t know if I was going to land on a motor home in the infield because it felt like it took two or three minutes to stop.”

Miracle on Lap 2

McDowell’s car finally came to a stop on the apron. It had miraculously landed on its wheels. McDowell, who never lost consciousness throughout the ordeal, gave himself a quick layman’s exam, put the window net down and gingerly hopped out on his own power. NASCAR officials helped him limp slightly to the ambulance as the stunned crowd then burst into relieved applause.

In years past, when tracks didn’t have what is referred to as a “SAFER barrier” that uses foam to help reduce impact, McDowell’s impact could have easily caused death. Changes in the car also played a factor in saving his life. But McDowell, who was still a relatively new Christian at the time, knew he needed to publicly acknowledge his most powerful source of protection. “A lot of credit goes to the safety measures in the new car,” he says. “But I tell everyone that when you look at the wreck and you look at the car, it wasn’t the day that God chose for me to die. That’s really how I look at it.”

The accident not only underscored McDowell’s growing trust in the Lord, it also made him that much more thankful for his supportive wife, Jami, who was patiently and nervously waiting for him at the infield care center. The couple has been together since they were 15-year-old high school students in Arizona.

“We’ve gone through this whole process together—the struggles, the high points, the low points,” McDowell says. “Trying to break into this sport is extremely difficult. There are a lot of tough times through that process. She really gets it. She knows as much about the sport as I do. She understands how hard it is. Jami is that constant just like how God is always there. He’s always the same loving God. So having a spouse that’s in it with you is awesome.”

While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show a few days after the accident, the host joked that Jami likely ordered her husband to get a desk job. But nothing was further from the truth. Ironically, Michael claims there are worse things in NASCAR than high-speed crashes lurking around Turn 1.

“This is a dangerous sport, but more so than that, it’s an easy sport to get trapped in and caught up in worldly things,” McDowell says. “There’s a lot of money and there’s a lot of fame. It’s sort of the rock star lifestyle. 

“Just keeping yourself grounded in an environment that’s surrounded by worldly things is probably one of the biggest challenges. Putting your hope and trust and faith in Christ is the key.” 

Chad Bonham is a veteran journalist-author and an aspiring film and broadcast producer with two documentaries to his credit. He lives in Broken Arrow, Okla., with his wife, Amy, and their three sons. He is currently working on three fall book releases, including The Faith of NASCAR.

Watch Michael McDowell’s miraculous escape, plus his interview with Ellen DeGeneres at

Faith in the Fast Lane

 These NASCAR names aim for a higher track

Watch NASCAR on TV and you’ll notice something that separates the popular stock car races from just about any other sporting event at any level: a noticeable emphasis on faith. NASCAR’s commitment shines through the pre-race prayer and carries over into many of the drivers’ post-race interviews.

“I love it,” veteran driver Morgan Shepherd says. “Every time the preacher gets up and prays. And he says it in Jesus’ name and he’s not afraid to say it. This sport is not afraid.”

Shepherd’s ringing endorsement really isn’t a surprise—he’s the 69-year-old driver of the famous No. 89 “Jesus” car. But a growing number of his peers are also increasingly comfortable enough to wear faith on their sleeves—along with any number of sponsor patches.

Much of this public display traces back to NASCAR’s roots in the South, where the moonshine runners of the 1930s and 1940s who pioneered the sport were often faithful churchgoers. The tradition has continued, thanks to  the NASCAR powers that be. 

“It starts at the top and works its way down,” says driver Michael McDowell. “The sport was built on God, and our country was built on God. They keep that very grounded. I think that’s a big reason why you still see that prayer time before the race.”

NASCAR’s broadcast partners are contractually required to televise all pre-race activities, including the prayer and the singing of the national anthem. But the real ministry takes place behind the scenes thanks to various organizations, such as Motor Racing Outreach (MRO).

Founded by former drivers Lake Speed and Darrell Waltrip, MRO hosts Bible studies at the race shops and various kids and family events at the track. Before each race, its chaplains pray for every willing driver, crew chief and their spouses. But for most competitors, it’s the pre-race chapel service that provides the greatest source of strength.

“Our schedule never ends. It’s year-round,” legendary driver Mark Martin says. “There’s very little time off. That itself extracts an emotional price. MRO’s just been a really important part of my life for the last 20 years and something I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like without. It’s sort of like the anchor or the real foundation for you to build your life around.”

While NASCAR may have the most prevalent faith community throughout the expansive sports world, that doesn’t mean everyone in the garage buys into the message. That’s reason enough for up-and-coming driver Trevor Bayne to remain proactive in his approach.

“There’s a lot of outreach that still needs to be done in this sport,” Bayne says. “As an outsider looking in, that’s all I saw was the pre-race prayer and stuff like that. But people don’t see how much revival still needs to happen. I think that’s why God’s placed us here.”

Jesus Culture aims to raise up young adults given wholeheartedly to Christ

In charismatic circles, the term revivalist often brings vivid memories of past and present evangelists such as Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn. But Banning Liebscher, founder of the Jesus Culture movement, hopes to bring that concept to today’s generation of teens and young adults.

“For us, a revivalist would be someone whose life is completely His,” Liebscher tells Charisma. “Our message is whole-hearted consecration unto the Lord. It’s not that we’re just Christians, but we’ve really given ourselves to see revival in the earth. We believe that God is looking for entire cities to be saved, and He’s looking for nations to turn to Him.”

Based out of Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., Jesus Culture has been steadily growing this influential ministry since hosting its first conference in 1999. Originally inspired by the Toronto and Brownsville revivals, Jesus Culture preaches the importance of intimacy with God, walking in the Spirit and manifestations of the supernatural.

“We preach a gospel of power,” Liebscher says. “If you come to our events, we’re going to pray for the sick. It’s a little bit different because it’s not necessarily coming from the person on the platform. If I’m preaching, we’ll pray for the sick, but we’re having the people pray for one another. 

“There are crazy things happening, but it’s not from me lining them up. It’s just from me telling the revivalists to pray for people.”

At Jesus Culture events, people have reported healing from such afflictions as stage-four cancer, scoliosis and asthma. One astonishing demonstration took place earlier this year in Cleveland, where a 3-year-old boy drowned in the conference’s hotel swimming pool.

“There was quite a commotion in the lobby when a 22-year-old conference attendee walked by and said, ‘Not while I’m around,’” Liebscher recalls. “She laid hands on the boy and commanded life to come into him. He spit out water and started breathing. We’re seeing that level of anointing, and we believe it will continue to be released upon the masses.”

Jesus Culture leads six to eight conferences a year in the U.S. and makes annual trips to Australia and the United Kingdom. Liebscher says they are witnessing radical changes in young people, who are being released to reach the world around them. In fact, conference attendees are encouraged to go out into the streets on the spot to lay hands on the sick, prophesy and “love on people.” 

Much of Jesus Culture’s impact has been fueled by its powerful worship ministry. Kim Walker-Smith, Melissa How and Chris Quilala head up a pop-rock styled band that has outsold mainstream stalwarts such as Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum and Ke$ha on iTunes. Its live cover performance of “How He Loves” has been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube.

Often compared to Hillsong United or the Passion movement, Jesus Culture recently released seven of its independent records nationally and has a brand-new CD and DVD project slated for November distribution. And next August, the group will enter uncharted territory with a large-scale event at Chicago’s Allstate Arena.

“Worship is a big part of what we do, but it’s music and message,” Liebscher emphasizes. “We fight for that. … It’s always going to be music and message. Ministry will take place. I’ll preach. We’ll lay hands on people. We’ll bring the message of whole-hearted consecration to the Lord.” 

God is turning sorrow to joy in China through Maria’s Big House of Hope.

When Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman’s 5-year-old daughter, Maria, died in a tragic accident two years ago, pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Ministries was one of the first people to reach out to them. Laurie, whose adult son, Chris, died in a car crash less than three months later, told Chapman: “Maria is a far greater part of your future than she is of your past.” 

Laurie’s statement has had a profound impact on Chapman, though he has come to understand how much his little girl remains ever present as well. He has seen much of this in the way Maria’s life has influenced Shaohannah’s Hope, also called Show Hope—a nonprofit founded by the Chapmans and named after their oldest adopted daughter.

Show Hope () helps families offset the high costs of international adoption. To date, Show Hope has awarded 2,000 grants.

“To watch what God has done through [Show Hope] has been amazing,” Chapman says. “All over the country … children have been brought into Christian families. We get to have a front-row seat and be a part of it.”

Maria’s lasting impact on the world was further solidified in July when the Chapmans opened Maria’s Big House of Hope in Luoyang, China. The facility is a 60,000-square-foot, six-story, blue-and-white building equipped to care for orphans 5 years old and younger with special needs. It includes 140 beds and a surgical floor.

Maria’s Big House of Hope was conceived when Chapman met a Christian physician and her husband who ran a special-needs foster-care facility as a ministry.

“We saw this work and fell in love with it and just asked if there was anything they dreamed of doing beyond this,” Chapman says. “They told us about some property the government had given them in the Luoyang province, but they didn’t have the resources to build a building.”

Chapman helped raise the money, and eventually the dream was realized. Now even the Chinese government sends people from its state-run orphanage to Maria’s Big House of Hope to learn how to better run its own facilities.

“It’s had this cool effect in China, and we’ve gotten to tell our story every time, that this is in honor of our daughter who’s with Jesus now and that’s why we can do this,” Chapman says.

“At the opening, I got to sing, ‘Yours.’ I literally declared in China, ‘God, China is all yours.’ Those opportunities and seeing how God has opened those doors has been an amazing thing.”

Four years later, Steven Curtis Chapman can’t shake his daughter’s death. That’s not a bad thing.

Biblical principles sometimes read more like clichés or fortune-cookie messages rather than life-affirming truths. Take Romans 8:28, for example: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (NKJV).

Those words penned by the apostle Paul sound good on paper. They provide comfort and hope to people dealing with sickness, a job loss or any number of challenging circumstances. It’s when the severest storms of life come blowing through that the decision must be made to believe it or not, to stand firm on God’s Word or let despair take control.

Such was the case with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman when they were suddenly thrust into the most devastating tragedy of their married lives—the death of their child.

‘Let Her Go’

May 21, 2008, was an otherwise normal afternoon at the Chapman house. Sure, there was a recent wedding engagement in the family to celebrate and a graduation to attend in a few days, but when you have six children ranging from preschool age to young adult, “normal” means there’s really no such thing as down time.

It was during such a usual afternoon that the unthinkable happened. At about 5 p.m., the Chapmans’ teenage son Will accidentally struck his 5-year-old sister, Maria, with his SUV while parking in the driveway.

LifeFlight transported her to the nearby Vanderbilt University children’s hospital in Nashville, Tenn., but rescue attempts proved futile. Maria was gone.

“When they told me that our daughter hadn’t made it, I had already determined in my mind that I was going to pray until God breathed life back into her,” Steven Curtis recalls. “I was going to bar the doors and make them carry me out. I wasn’t giving up. But it was my wife who spoke to me, and the Spirit through her, to say, ‘Let her go.’”

It took a long time before Chapman, a platinum-selling and multiple-award winning recording artist, was able to share his grief with the world. Even after he reluctantly resumed performing, he remained silent on the topic of Maria’s death for almost three months.

After he and Mary Beth found the strength to tell their story, the invitations for them to share it were mind-boggling. Everyone wanted to know how this high-profile family had survived such a horrendous tragedy.

They appeared on Larry King Live, Good Morning America and The 700 Club, and granted an interview to People magazine.

Chapman suddenly was caught up in a perplexing dichotomy. He was grieving immense loss while also attempting to accept, even embrace, these opportunities to reveal God’s love and grace to a world that wanted to hear from him.

Chapman also knew he couldn’t give people pat responses laden with Christianese. There was nothing he could do but lay his heart on the line and convey uninhibited honesty in the process.

“We couldn’t give all the answers,” Chapman says. “I think that’s part of the way God has used it.

“People who would normally be very skeptical and cynical now might go: ‘OK, I don’t care to hear about your religion and your faith and all your God talk, but if you’re surviving this and you’re making it through this, I want to hear about that. Because that isn’t religion as I know it. That’s something different.’

“Almost not having the answers, in and of itself, was in a way a pretty profound answer,” Chapman adds.

The interviews were especially tough on his wife, Chapman says. He admits there are still occasions when his desire to help others cope with loss is overtaken by a streak of selfishness.

“All of these wonderful things, and us getting to share our hope and comfort with others who are hurting, we’re thankful for that, and we see God using that,” Chapman says.

“But in my humanity and in my flesh, I’d do anything to turn the hands of time back and say: ‘As good as all that is, I don’t care. I want my daughter back.’”

Unanswered Questions

The journey that led Chapman to becoming Maria’s father is well-documented. Ten years ago, when the adoption bug hit him and Mary Beth, he was best known as the face of contemporary Christian music. Over his 23-year career he has amassed more than 10 million album sales, 45 No. 1 radio singles, five Grammy Awards and an astounding 56 Dove Awards.

First came adopted daughter Shaohannah (pronounced sho-HAN-uh). Three years later, the Chapmans adopted Stevey Joy. Then in 2004, after performing at an Easter service in Beijing, a missionary couple introduced him to a 1-year-old orphan named Maria. Chapman instinctively knew he had possibly just met his newest daughter.

By then, Chapman was already more than the most awarded Christian artist of all time. He was unofficially acting in a new role as the face of international adoption. The Chapmans became a tailor-made illustration for others of how God adopts believers into His family.

And perhaps it was the unique nature of the Chapman family makeup, coupled with the artist’s very public persona that made the inexplicable tragedy so much more difficult to comprehend.

“There’s a very large part of us as a family that really doesn’t understand and wouldn’t begin to say that anybody understands the theology of why God allows these kinds of things,” Chapman admits. “The closest we’ll ever get is to read Job. That’s about as close as we’ll get to understanding how God uses suffering and … why He allows it.

“I’ve heard some amazing messages and done some pretty incredible studies of Job over this last year and a half, and I’ve come to understand, I think, a lot more about what God is revealing about His heart and His character through that.”

Entrusted With a Story

Chapman believes that God has, for whatever reason, entrusted this tragic story to him and his family. Despite his understandable reluctance at times, he will tell it “over and over again” and “in a public way,” he says.

But first Chapman had to ask God some intense questions. And the best way he knew how to convey his feelings was through music. The songs that came out of his grief eventually turned into an album, Beauty Will Rise—although, according to Chapman, it is still “really weird” to refer to the processing of his emotions that way.

“I didn’t set out to make a new record or a new album based on a theme I thought God was giving me,” he says. “I call these my psalms. It’s just me crying out to God with many of the same questions David had.

“Now I know what he meant when he was saying, ‘How long, O Lord?’ or ‘How long is the enemy going to beat the tar out of me?’ or ‘How long am I going to feel so separated from You?’”

Music has long been the way Chapman has processed his life. “It’s a real natural thing,” he says. Some of the songs on the new record, such as “Questions,” were literal examples of his dealing with the unknown and grappling with the unthinkable.

“God, are You serious?” he recalls asking. “My own son driving a car and not seeing his sister, and then my daughters in the yard watching it happen and running up? There’s just too many wrongs to make any sense.

“But through those kinds of questions, I think God has given me not so much answers but places of resolve to say I don’t have to have the answer to that, but I really need to have Your presence and a sense that You’re walking through this with us.”

Eventually it became apparent that Chapman needed to share these musical stories with the world, and the CD released. Even without the music, his fans and supporters felt the need to reach out to him—many with similar stories of tragedy and loss. The outpouring was strangely both a comfort and a burden.

“People feel that need to connect,” he says. “There’s a fellowship of suffering that you become a part of, and there’s a connection there and a family of sorts. But it’s also the reason why I’ve done a limited number of interviews and meet-and-greets—because one of my real concerns, in my humanness and in my flesh, [is] there’s only so much that I know I can hear and even tell.”

‘Cinderella’ Reborn

One of Chapman’s most popular songs is “Cinderella,” inspired by his oldest daughter, Emily. Ultimately it became just as much about his three adopted girls and imagining the bittersweet moments of seeing them grow up and eventually start their own lives. After Maria’s death, Chapman resolved never to sing “Cinderella” at his concerts.

“I just thought it would be too painful,” he says. “But with time, I began to realize that if I believe God’s Word, and if I believe that there is a resurrection from the dead that Christ led the way into and that He’s overcome death and the grave, and that to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ, then I’m going to be with Him and Maria’s with Him; therefore, we’re going to be together. I’m going to see my little girl again. I’m going to dance with her again.

“So what would be unthinkably sad all of a sudden has become this hopeful declaration.”

Chapman says that epiphany led to an “insatiable hunger” to learn as much as he could about heaven. It also inspired a new song, titled “Heaven Is the Face,” which came out of a moment in which the songwriter—even though he’d been taught that heaven is about being with God—confessed: “Right now, heaven is about being with my little girl.”

“And then God led me to the thought that it’s not just that,” Chapman adds. “Every nook and cranny of heaven is full of His glory and His goodness and His perfection. There are no more orphans. There are no more goodbyes. There’s no more loneliness. That’s heaven.”

Living Hope

As Chapman has gingerly navigated through his family’s new normal, one of his biggest fears has been any appearance of embracing opportunism spun from his family’s tragedy. With management companies, publicity firms and record labels involved, he is ever aware of that possibility taking root.

“You could so easily throw the baby out with the bath water,” Chapman says. “There have been moments when I’ve just said: ‘I can’t do this. I can’t let this get turned into an iTunes cover shot, or whatever.’”

But inevitably he is always brought back to the concept of purpose—whether fully understood or not. Since that tragic May 21 afternoon in 2008, purpose has been an ongoing process that has led him to live in the moment and faithfully follow the path that has stretched out ahead.

“We just have to remember that this is the story God has entrusted to us,” Chapman concludes about the family’s loss. “We’ll go wherever we can to tell it to His glory and to honor our daughter’s memory and more importantly to honor the God who’s given us the hope that’s just kept us alive to this point.”

Chad Bonham is a journalist, author and producer based in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Learn more about the Chapmans’ organization created in memory of Maria at

Will biotechnology stretch our legacies out longer, or are the ethical implications too damaging?

Although escaping mortality is out of the question, stretching its boundaries may not be, according to new discoveries in genetic research.

Geneticists discovered how to lengthen the life span of animals and insects by the alteration of a single gene. Though companies form to benefit from any future application to humans, some are raising questions about the ethical implications of such a process.

With the alteration of a specific gene called the daf-2, Cynthia Kenyon, the Herbert Boyer distinguished professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), successfully lengthened the life span of insects (namely, nematode C. elegan worms) by six times–the equivalent of 500 human years.

“More startling,” reports Discover magazine, “the worms remained robust almost until they died.”

Startling as it may be, creating a longer life span for a worm doesn’t mean it will be easy to do the same for humans. But Kenyon is willing to move in that direction.

“Not very long ago, most people thought that aging was something that just happened,” says Kenyon on UCSF’s neuroscience faculty Web site. But Kenyon found differently.

Kenyon, who U.S. News & World Report calls one of the “Best Minds: People to Watch” in 2004, works with several other geneticists to pioneer age-development research. She began experimenting with the lengthening of small worms’ life spans 10 years ago while finishing her post-doctoral fellowship at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. Based on her findings, Kenyon believes environmental cues and signals from the reproductive system affect the insects’ daf-2 gene and that determines how long they live.

Kenyon co-founded Elixir Pharmaceuticals in hopes of creating a human anti-aging pill. She thinks the drug will target the daf-2 gene and other insulin receptors.

“If our company could make a pill, everyone would want it,” Kenyon says in U.S. News & World Report.

But David Stevens, M.D., the executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, isn’t so quick to jump in the proverbial fountain of life.

“In the larger context,” Stevens says, “working to find a genetic key to prolonged life is part of the intellectual movement attempting to improve on the human condition through reason.”

Stevens says the idea of a prolonged life is a “Holy Grail of sorts” for those who don’t believe in any existence after death.

Before such a pill materializes, society must confront ethical implications of prolonging life, but “a magic pill or injection is unlikely to develop due to many of these concerns,” Stevens says. The conception also remains lodged in the future because biologists still don’t know exactly what controls the daf-2 gene in humans.

Daniel S. McConchie, director of public relations and public policy for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, suggests a genetic intervention such as a life-lengthening pill wouldn’t be much different than medical interventions we already accept.

“There is nothing wrong with eating well, exercising or medically intervening to live a better, longer, healthier life,” McConchie says. “In Genesis, people lived many hundreds of years. The fall [of man] sentenced us to death, but not necessarily a short life. Believe me; we’ll never be able to genetically engineer immortality.”

Terry Dorian, author of Total Health and Restoration (Siloam), is one of those using exercise and current medical interventions to live a better, longer life. She eschews the idea of a gene-changing elixir. Instead, she relies on advances in nutrition.

“The greatest health problems that keep us from living longer lives are 85 percent diet- and lifestyle-related,” Dorian says. “Integrated groups from the best schools and universities are already talking about living to 120 by changing dietary and lifestyle habits.”

Dorian, who holds a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, has studied health in different cultures for more than 20 years. She uses natural healing therapies and takes bioidentical hormones to improve her health.

She says most people could live years longer by eating foods dense in nutrients and low in calories. This not only lengthens life but also improves the quality of life.

“Enlightened people in the medical field are talking about quality and length at the same time,” Dorian says. “We need to pay attention to what the Lord has shown us [about health] and what we already know.”

Will biotechnology stretch our legacies out longer, or are the ethical implications too damaging?

Although escaping mortality is out of the question, stretching its boundaries may not be, according to new discoveries in genetic research.

Geneticists discovered how to lengthen the life span of animals and insects by the alteration of a single gene. Though companies form to benefit from any future application to humans, some are raising questions about the ethical implications of such a process.

With the alteration of a specific gene called the daf-2, Cynthia Kenyon, the Herbert Boyer distinguished professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), successfully lengthened the life span of insects (namely, nematode C. elegan worms) by six times–the equivalent of 500 human years.

“More startling,” reports Discover magazine, “the worms remained robust almost until they died.”

Startling as it may be, creating a longer life span for a worm doesn’t mean it will be easy to do the same for humans. But Kenyon is willing to move in that direction.

“Not very long ago, most people thought that aging was something that just happened,” says Kenyon on UCSF’s neuroscience faculty Web site. But Kenyon found differently.

Kenyon, who U.S. News & World Report calls one of the “Best Minds: People to Watch” in 2004, works with several other geneticists to pioneer age-development research. She began experimenting with the lengthening of small worms’ life spans 10 years ago while finishing her post-doctoral fellowship at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. Based on her findings, Kenyon believes environmental cues and signals from the reproductive system affect the insects’ daf-2 gene and that determines how long they live.

Kenyon co-founded Elixir Pharmaceuticals in hopes of creating a human anti-aging pill. She thinks the drug will target the daf-2 gene and other insulin receptors.

“If our company could make a pill, everyone would want it,” Kenyon says in U.S. News & World Report.

But David Stevens, M.D., the executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, isn’t so quick to jump in the proverbial fountain of life.

“In the larger context,” Stevens says, “working to find a genetic key to prolonged life is part of the intellectual movement attempting to improve on the human condition through reason.”

Stevens says the idea of a prolonged life is a “Holy Grail of sorts” for those who don’t believe in any existence after death.

Before such a pill materializes, society must confront ethical implications of prolonging life, but “a magic pill or injection is unlikely to develop due to many of these concerns,” Stevens says. The conception also remains lodged in the future because biologists still don’t know exactly what controls the daf-2 gene in humans.

Daniel S. McConchie, director of public relations and public policy for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, suggests a genetic intervention such as a life-lengthening pill wouldn’t be much different than medical interventions we already accept.

“There is nothing wrong with eating well, exercising or medically intervening to live a better, longer, healthier life,” McConchie says. “In Genesis, people lived many hundreds of years. The fall [of man] sentenced us to death, but not necessarily a short life. Believe me; we’ll never be able to genetically engineer immortality.”

Terry Dorian, author of Total Health and Restoration (Siloam), is one of those using exercise and current medical interventions to live a better, longer life. She eschews the idea of a gene-changing elixir. Instead, she relies on advances in nutrition.

“The greatest health problems that keep us from living longer lives are 85 percent diet- and lifestyle-related,” Dorian says. “Integrated groups from the best schools and universities are already talking about living to 120 by changing dietary and lifestyle habits.”

Dorian, who holds a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, has studied health in different cultures for more than 20 years. She uses natural healing therapies and takes bioidentical hormones to improve her health.

She says most people could live years longer by eating foods dense in nutrients and low in calories. This not only lengthens life but also improves the quality of life.

“Enlightened people in the medical field are talking about quality and length at the same time,” Dorian says. “We need to pay attention to what the Lord has shown us [about health] and what we already know.”