NEBUCHADNEZZAR & MILE HIGH ACADEMY INCIDENT

1/18/2020 Denver, CO... It was somewhat a quieter morning as CIASDA Youth entered the newly painted youth room. Around 10AM, the youth gathered on the round tables with cereal, fruits, croissants and their CQ Sabbath School lesson.

Our Sabbath School teacher, elder Augustine Sheriff, walked in the room and started shaking everyone's hand with the usual Sabbath greeting. As the youth settled in with their breakfast and phone as the replacement of the Bible, the first question asked before opening prayer was about what our thoughts were regarding the Mile High Academy's (MHA) recent incident?

A trending story filled the local news, on Thursday, January 16th, about a 17-year-old missing MHA student, who later was found dead on the back seat of a car. Authorities believed that an 18-year-old male, who apparently had a relationship with the victim, have killed her near MHA and drove the car aimlessly with the dead victim for hours. The alleged killer later claimed his own life as police officer approached his vehicle.

So knowing that, as a father of two toddlers, I tried to avoid the continuation of the quiet somber morning, by jesting, "don't date."

About half of the youth reacted with laughter and some thought, "that joke came on a bad timing bro," said Denzel.

More then 50% of our youth (from the ages of 6 to 30) are either attending or are alumni of MHA. And as for the rest of the youth, we have had the opportunity to participate in many public events that MHA offered. So the incident made a huge impact to the CIASDA Youth.

As the laughter recede, students of MHA continued sharing their thoughts about what had happened and how they and their school is coping with the tragedy.

After opening prayer, we jumped into our Sabbath School lesson regarding Daniel, his three friends, and the infamous king Nebuchadnezzar. There, I found similarities between the story of the Israelite's youth and what are currently happening.

No, there is nothing in that story that talked about dating. However, the similarities were solely about our loving God. The God who continued to love young people like Daniel and his friends, is the same God that is in love with the MHA student that have passed away, or the youth that were sitting around the round tables. Not only that, but the story of these four young people made an impact in the life of king Nebuchadnezzar.

The king was not a believer of the Hebrew God and he probably have killed the family of these young men. Also, according to Daniel's story, this king defied God over and over again. Yet, God still loved king Nebuchadnezzar.

I do not know whether we will see king Nebuchadnezzar in heaven, but what I do know for sure is, God have never left him, God had never left the four Israelite youth, God had never left the CIASDA youth, and He never turned His eyes away from the girl that had her life cut short.

While there is a point in this world's story, where God promised to wipe away our tears, John 11:35 said, "Jesus wept." And because Jesus in His character is love, seeing His children goes through tragedy after tragedy also wept for us and with us. In fact, While there is still sin, Jesus is weeping.

But God promised that on His second coming, He doesn't only wipe our tears away, but "there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” -Revelation 21:4 NKJV.

Yes, tragedy will continue to happen in life, but the biggest tragedy would be if we, who knows about God's love, denied His love for us.

— Assdhy Lolowang; 2nd & 3rd photos were taken from google image search.