hostage!

This is a story I am telling as part of my talk tommorow. I think this is the first time I’ve shared it publically. The rest of the talk can be found at the download area of the Light Force homepage.

I’d like to tell you about 50 minutes of my life that has shaped the

rest.

As a sophomore in bible school, I was swimming in all of my

newfound knowledge and frankly overcome with optimism. At the same time I

realized I knew nothing and was completely inexperienced and yet I was confident

that God would use me to change the world.

Towards the end of the

fall term I was looking forward to wrapping up my classes and heading home for

the holidays. I had met the most beautiful girl on campus and fallen madly in

love with the woman who I was pretty sure I would marry.

All of

that changed one fall day in late November. The day was unremarkable in every

day. I had to work after school, I still had homework to do, and I had one last

class of the day. As I trotted into the athletic facility on Moody’s campus I

was looking forward to my indoor soccer class.

The class itself

was highly normal. Two teams engaged in a battle of footwork, skill, and funny

bounces. Our professor, the schools soccer coach, a man whom I greatly admired

in every way, played on the other team to even things out. After about 45

minutes of class, as the game ended and people muddled around, another student

and I decided to ditch out of class a few minutes early to get a jump on the

rest of the day.

Every other class I had ever had in that gym I

left using the door that went straight to the locker room. For an unknown reason

we sailed out of the main doors and into the main foyer.

We were

greeted by a very large man. We didn’t pay any attention to him as he walked in

our direction since we were engaged in conversation about the game. But the man

quickly drew our attention in that he screamed at us “I don’t want any trouble…

get behind the desk!” In the horror of that moment I saw a street person, dirty

and confused and obviously not belonging, and a gun.

In the next

3-4 minutes he quickly gathered about 10 students and employees behind the small

enclosure that was the main desk. People leaving classes, people coming to the

gym to work out, people on their way out of the office were all greeted like me.

“Get behind the desk.”

At first, I thought it was just a drill or

some kind of a joke. But when I took my place behind the counter I could see the

fear on the assistant athletic director’s eyes. This was real.

Joanne, the desk worker who first encountered this man sat on the

floor next to me praying. While she was overcome by fear, I was overcome by the

reality that if she didn’t flip the switch to lock the main doors, there would

be dozens of people behind this desk within 10 minutes or so. As he was off on

the other side of the foyer accosting some more unsuspecting students, Joanne

quickly stood up flip the switch on the desk to lock the doors and grabbed the

phone. She calmly called 911 and left the phone off the hook.

All

told, 34 people ended up behind that counter by the time the first Chicago

police officers arrived on the scene. Among them, about 20 students, a few

employees, the soccer coach, and the assistant athletic

director.

What struck us all was the frantic pace of the man who

had taken us hostage. This wasn’t a calm calculated criminal… he was obviously

distraught. Emotionally and physically he was shaking. When he wasn’t yelling at

us “Don’t move or I’ll kill you” he was talking to himself and pacing back and

forth in the large foyer. It was clear that he was formulating a plan as he went

and it clearer that he was well over his head. Clearly he wasn’t prepared to

have 34 hostages!

When the man became aggravated again, the police

wisely backed off and waited for more help outside. As soon as they were

outside, the man ordered Joanne to call WGN. The first three times she called,

she was hung up on. On the fourth attempt she was put on hold. Not pleased by

this lack of respect he told Joanne to stand up next to him. What he said next

will be etched on my brain the rest of my life. He yelled to the police, “You

get WGN here so I can read this letter then kill everyone!” Joanne fainted when

he said this.

The good news is that he realized that a 20 year old

woman sprawled out the floor wasn’t going to look good, so he immediately told 2

students to get her out of there. They were the first 3 people

released.

Within 15 minutes every news agency in Chicago had set up

a satellite on the campus of Moody Bible Insitute. About the same time we could

all see a large amount of police officers show up.

When they

disobeyed his order and gained entry to the building, he quickly grabbed the

soccer coach and decided he was going to use him as a human shield. Another

minute went by and he decided he needed more human shields; he pointed to me and

the assistant athletic director and motioned for us to stand in front of him as

well.

As I stood up and turned around with my back to this guy… I

realized that this was a big moment in my life. How had I gotten there? How was

I going to change the world if this maniac was going to kill me on WGN? I wasn’t

scared but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. This man was about a foot

taller than me. He squeezed himself into a corner behind the corner with me

pulled tightly to his right side, Sean the athletic director was next to me and

Coach Harding was on the left side. Against my kidney was pressed the cold

reality of this guy’s gun.

As I scanned the foyer I saw a surreal

scene. I had seen guns before, but I had never had them pointed at me before. As

I looked out there were about 50 police officers and SWAT team members pointing

pistols, shotguns, and rifles pointed at us. The more the police talked to this

man, the more hostile he got. For the next few minutes I just stood there, half

contemplating my purpose in life and my life story and half trying to figure out

if I should be doing something.

It was at this moment that Coach

Harding decided he would start talking to this man. Unlike the police, he was

responsive to Coach. Coach started talking to him about why he was doing this.

The man just kept saying… “I need to kill some people for what’s been

done.”

I turned my head to look at Coach. I could see that Coach

was trying to look at him and he wasn’t looking back. So I decided to face my

fate and turn around. Sean and Coach followed suit. In retrospect I think it I

decided to do this because I wanted to look at this guy. If he was going to

shoot me it wasn’t going to be in the back.

In my fear I looked

into this mans eyes. The eyes that looked back at me were filled with terror and

anguish. But more than that I could see pain. Seeing his pain lead right into my

training… more than letting me go… I could see that this man needed the Lord

desperately. It all started to make sense in my mind. He hadn’t come here by

accident. He had come here, to a Bible college, to seek God.

In

the next few minutes he and I talked. As he looked at me and listened to my

testimony and gospel presentation Coach talked him into letting more people go.

By the time I came to the end of the Romans Road, he had let go everyone but the

three of us.

I had presented the gospel dozens of times before I

shared with this man. What was strikingly interesting about this time was how

much he listened. I knew he was disturbed, I knew he was probably strung out on

crack, but we were connecting. I could see it in his eyes. As I continued you

could see his body shrink. This had become a private moment between 3 believers

and a man seeking God. And yet the reality was that there were 50 cops ready to

kill him at worst and drag him off to jail at best. He started to weep. My heart

broke for him.

As he let me go and I walked away I actually felt

sorry for him. He had made a life-altering mistake but he was just a boy looking

for God the Father.

Within seconds, it was over. As I walked away

a dozen cops jumped on him.