DownloadJuly 19 issue
When the train arrives too soon
By Jim BishopPage:
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People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’ … — The Impressions (1964)
Jim Bishop is public information officer at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
God’s timing and human timetables are rarely synchronized, or so it seems from an earthly point of view.
Recent case in point: I’m sitting in a hastily assembled gathering of people on a nearly picture-perfect July 1 summer afternoon. None of us desires to be here, at least not for the reason this assembly was called.
The small group came together in Martin Chapel at Eastern Mennonite University to mourn the sudden death of a recent graduate, Jason Jay Marner, 22, of Brighton, Iowa.
Jason had graduated from EMU on May 1 with a degree in business administration and had just started a full-time job on Monday, June 28, at Dynamic Aviation in Bridgewater. Thursday morning of that week, it ended when he lost control of the motorcycle he was riding on Airport Road while en route from one job to another.
As I sat in the chapel, listening to words of Scripture and reflections from people who knew Jason well, it felt like a replay of an excruciating scene from exactly two years earlier, July 1, 2008.
I calculated that while I was sitting in a memorial service at Park View Mennonite Church for Albert Keim, a much-loved veteran history professor at EMU who died at age 72 of health-related issues, another spring graduate of the university lost his life in a different kind of struggle.
Matt Garber, 22, an honors graduate with a degree in nursing, was on a short-term missions trip in Costa Rica, assisting a family and working on his Spanish.
Matt, from Elizabethtown, Pa., was swimming with a group of young people in a cove that was not known to be dangerous. A riptide apparently caught several of the swimmers. All but Garber managed to return safely to shore.
Matt’s passing sent shock waves through the EMU community and beyond, especially because he was a student leader who enlivened the campus with his charisma, compassion and sense of humor. He was planning to start work in the emergency room at Lancaster (Pa.) General Hospital at summer’s end.
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