{"id":308,"date":"2008-08-12T23:20:55","date_gmt":"2008-08-12T23:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2008\/08\/the-death-of-a.html"},"modified":"2008-08-12T23:20:55","modified_gmt":"2008-08-12T23:20:55","slug":"the-death-of-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/08\/the-death-of-a.html","title":{"rendered":"The Death of a Young Missionary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig was in my home. He danced with my daughter. He was a wonderful man of God. But he was killed a few days ago. This post was taken from Seth’s Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It’s been a season of sorrow in my daughter Estie’s life. So when she called up crying last night, I wasn’t surprised. But this was different – she’d just gotten the news that her close friend Craig Gallegos, whom she met on AIM’s First Year Missionary program in Mexico was killed. The news devastated her as I’m sure it did many. Craig was an original. He died giving one of his young disciples a ride home on his motorcycle. Since he only had one helmet, he gave it to his friend. When they crashed, the helmet saved his friend’s life (read article here).<\/p>\n

Estie remembers Craig in her email to me below:
\nHe liked to laugh, he liked to be intense. The last time I talked to him in May he asked me how I was and I told him I was “Loving life!” “That’s what I like to hear!!” he said back. <\/p>\n

He would swing dance with me, pray with me, try pick up lines on me (which I hated), argue with me about whether or not drinking was biblical, and would even let me cry on the phone with him when I needed to at 2am in the morning! He gave like he would never run dry. He nicknamed me “Fuerte” while in Mexico. <\/p>\n

Craig would always ask me how Leah was doing, because he knew I was burdened for her. When I was nannying in Colorado he drove five hours to come see me. He danced with little Gracie Davis, and laughed when she said, “Dance with me, boy!”<\/p>\n

One time he and I decided to try to live off of ten dollars a week between the two of us, so we could see how life was for the Mexicans. I lasted one day, he never stopped giving me crap for that. When in Dallas he took me out to a nice dinner and bought me flowers and an orange gorilla that I named OG, which he would always ask if OG was doing ok when he called. <\/p>\n

I used to joke that I wanted to marry an Irish man, he would act disappointed and say, “That rules me out.” Since he is half Mexican. Last year he texted me saying, “Guess what! My name is Scottish (close to Irish) and it means rock!” I then let him know that I would make an exception for him, all in good humor of course:) <\/p>\n

Craig was a rock, to the core. He loved and lived hard. He poured his life out into the youth in his area and was sold out for Durango Colorado. We used to call each other and sing the song “Here I Am Once Again” to each other. Craig couldn’t sing at all, but he tried:) While in Mexico on a mission trip he tried to teach me the song. We had no recordings of the song just the notes, but he taught me it until it sounded halfway like how he remembered it. But he would always make fun of me saying I never played it how it was actually supposed to be played. <\/p>\n

Heaven just got a whole lot more exciting on July 21st, I can’t wait to see Craig’s smile again, or to hear him make fun of my laugh. And hopefully he’ll still have some bling bling on his ear acting like the big shot that he was.
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Craig was in my home. He danced with my daughter. He was a wonderful man of God. But he was killed a few days ago. This post was taken from Seth’s Blog. It’s been a season of sorrow in my daughter Estie’s life. So when she called up crying last night, I wasn’t surprised. 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