Champions of Character – Trusting HIM More
The e-mail subject line read: “GOD is so Good!” It was dated February 6, 2008. It was a note from Lori Dean Funderburk, BMC 1976, mother of current Blue Mountain College freshman, Chelsea and Union University junior, Ross. It was the “morning after.” Union University in Jackson, Tennessee had been hit by an F4 tornado, ($40 million in damages). Lori and her husband Rick are with Baptist Global Response; from their apartment in Singapore Lori waited for news from the states after an outbreak of tornadoes swept through the mid south, where all three of her children live. (The Funderburk’s oldest daughter, Audra lives with her husband in Nashville, TN.)
Finally the call came from Ross. “Son, are you alright??” “Mom, people should have died.” Ross was utterly astonished as daylight revealed the power of the storm. The damage was horrific. Ross’s dorm was totally wiped out. His things were lost; his car was damaged…but Ross was alive.
Not strangers to the sacrifice of separation, Lori and Rick have been on the mission field since1993 serving in West Africa. A meaningful observation she made in one of her communiqués in early February (Lori faithfully stays in touch with her alma mater): “I have been thinking today of all our kids have experienced in their few short years [as children of missionary parents]. We [the family] lost most of our things in Sierra Leone our very first term. Ross has lost everything before – at his boarding school in Africa when war forced evacuation.”
She related more details: “I remember how the LORD sustained me in those hours after we were informed that evacuation was underway. Of course, once they withdrew, we had no communications with them! It was wait, wait, wait. I anguished with the LORD in prayer: ‘Please let me know they are alive.’ The next morning, in the first televised coverage of the incident by CNN, there on the screen stood my children, clearly visible in the horde – smiling and waving. GOD is so good.”
The closing lines of Lori’s e-mail read: “Yes, even our daughter Audra knows loss – most recently losing everything in Katrina. YET, GOD has always provided MORE than we could have ever imagined in the midst of great loss….I bow at HIS feet today in praise. HE has sustained our family; our losses have only made us trust and love HIM more!”
In the LORD’s graciousness to us, it appears that Lori will be in the states again in June and will be joining us for Homecoming on the Hill – 2008 when we celebrate BMC Champions of Character, among whom we gratefully count the Funderburks!
