On Friday an ACU bus had an accident. 16 were injured and 1 was killed. The one was Anabel Reid. Her big brother is Becton, one of my closest friends. She was only 19. In 2004 I sponsored a backpacking trip the church put together for the Jr. High kids who wanted to do a Summer Summit. There were two girls going and so they needed a female sponsor. One girl was Anabel. The other girl, Jesse, was in a car accident a little over a year ago and died. I am the sole surviving girl from that trip. It is a disconcerting feeling to say the least. At church yesterday Stu Childre, the elder who organized every Summit, asked me to write something about Anabel to offer to the family for her funeral. Here is what I wrote:
Summer Summit. It is a life changing experience as a teenager. It is a life changing experience at any age, really. In the summer of 2004 I had the honor of being asked to be the female sponsor for the first ever Junior High Summer Summit. There were only two girls going, but they needed a female adult to be there too. Anabel Reid was one of the two girls. I was so excited to get to share the rituals, tears, sweat, and backbreaking joy that was Summit with her. I expected to have to carry extra weight since the kids were all so young, but Anabel never asked me to carry hers. She never complained, always encouraged, and made all the guys look like girls! She was a machine. The route we took was the same route we took on my very first Summit when I was 11; we went up to Leviathon which has a VERY steep incline to get up to the lake under the peak. It started raining while we were ascending and I was bringing up the tail while Anabel looked down from above encouraging the boys to catch her. It was so awesome to be her sponsor and never have to worry about her! When we left the lake, we stopped for lunch on the ridge on the far side up above the lake and had a giant snowball fight. Adults versus kids. It started out with the kids picking on Rodney and Jay Ratcliff, but they knew if they got me involved it was likely to get ugly. Anabel wasn’t scared though, she made it a point to hit me with a couple snowballs and we proceeded to wrestle and grapple until I finally triumphed! (I had to play a little dirty though, she wasn’t one to give up without a fight!)
On my first Summit, when we descended off the ridge, I had been wet, cold, scared, and had fallen. A lot. I was anxious to face my demons on the decent and beat that mountain. I had told Anabel about that experience and how I would probably be scared going down that path so if she needed help to go to Stu, Rodney, or Jay. I remember as we started down that path, she grabbed my hand, smiled at me and said, “You got this!” She was so strong to not let my fear become her own, but instead shared her courage and strength with me. I fell down that path again. A slightly bigger fall this time. I wish I could take Anabel with me the next time I go to concur that pass. She never did fall.
Solo is the heart of Summit. We spend 24 hours alone with a tarp, sleeping bag, Bible, and water. Then we come together and have Thanksgiving dinner and share what we learned about God, our world, and ourselves. It was my first time to be an adult and get to help prepare and serve the feast and it was such an honor. When the kids came back, it was amazing to see how their young hearts had been touched by the experience. So many walls came down, and we all saw just how much life these young souls had lived. Anabel shared her amazingly resilient and pure love for our Lord. She encouraged the other kids who shared about how hard their parents’ divorce had been, or how they struggled with health problems. She knew God’s word without having to open her Bible, and had a much older and wiser spirit than we expected out of such a young girl. She was unique and special. I went on Summit to take care of her as her sponsor. But she is the one who gave me strength to overcome my fear and showed me what faith really looks like.
I will miss Anabel greatly.
