Sister Freaks (4 page)

The three friends pretended not to notice the librarian’s glare and chatted as they found an empty table. Instead of studying, they joked around with a camera for a few minutes, enjoying each other’s company and the memories of prom the weekend before.

Slowly, they began to notice sounds and movements outside the library. Seth looked out the window, but the stream of students leaving the school looked like the usual lunch crowd. No one seemed to be paying much attention until a teacher ran into the library, screaming, “There are boys outside with guns and bombs. They’re shooting students!”

Crystal searched for an explanation: It was a senior prank. It was a student’s video project. Those were firecrackers exploding in the hallway. After all, nothing bad could happen there. They were in Littleton, Colorado, an upper-middle-class suburb of housing developments, parks, and strip malls. People didn’t get shot there.

But it was April 20, 1999, and people were being shot at Columbine High School. As the sounds drew closer, Crystal watched a terrified classmate stumble into the library, clutching his bleeding shoulder. This was no prank. There was no time to escape. Crystal, Seth, and Sara took cover in the only place they could, under a library table. Seth pulled Crystal’s head to his chest to protect her and whispered, “Start praying. I don’t know what’s happening. God is the only one who can get us through.”

Two boys with guns entered the library. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at Columbine, began moving around the room, randomly shooting their classmates.

Crystal’s face was hidden in Seth’s shirt, but she remembers the sounds, smells, and feelings of the next few minutes. Gunshots and pipe bombs exploded around her, shattering glass and mixing with students’ frightened cries and the angry voices of the killers. She smelled the smoke from the pipe bombs and felt the floor shake with every explosion.

The voices drew nearer, and Crystal realized,
It’s my turn to die
. She heard a gunshot just a few feet away—a boy under the next table was killed merely because he wore glasses. For the first time, she thought she would not leave the Columbine library alive.

Crystal began to pray. “Okay, God, if You’re real, get me out of here alive. I will give You my life forever. I’ll quit partying. I will do anything. Just get me out of here. I didn’t understand then. I do now. It all makes sense now.”

One of the killers shoved in a library chair, and it hit Crystal’s arm. They had reached her table. But even as she thought about dying, a voice in Crystal’s mind told her, “God’s going to get you out. You have a story to tell. God’s going to get you out.”

The two shooters began talking to each other. They had run out of ammunition, and their extra bag of bombs and bullets was in the hallway. Without even looking under Crystal’s table, they left the library.

As soon as Eric and Dylan left, the surviving students began to leave through a fire escape. They knew the killers had just gone to reload; they would come back. In the instant before she left the library, Crystal looked around. “It was the first time I had seen the room. Everything had been shot up—the computers, the windows, the books—and little fires had been started from the pipe bombs. I saw the bodies of my classmates on the floor . . . and I knew that they were dead.”

Crystal and the other survivors in the library ran together out of the school. Not sure how many shooters there were or whether they were watching, Crystal and the other kids took shelter behind a police car parked just outside.

Eventually, police officers took everyone farther away from the school. Crystal was separated from Seth and Sara and started to weep uncontrollably. “Everything I had known for sixteen years—my innocence, my security, my safety—was just stripped away from me. I didn’t know what I had just seen; I hadn’t processed it all.”

Crystal joined the chaos, throngs of students wandering through the nearby park and shopping center, looking for phones to call parents or friends. It would take hours before everyone was reunited and the names of the dead were confirmed. Crystal walked across a field with Craig Scott while he looked for his sister, Rachel. They would later find out she was the first person murdered, shot just outside the building. Crystal would hear students telling the story of a classmate killed in a different part of the library after she affirmed her faith in Christ, without knowing right away that it was Cassie Bernall, a member of Crystal’s youth group.

She eventually found a phone and called her father, who met her near the school. She filled out police reports and eventually went home for a tearful reunion with her mother and brother.

Even in her pain, Crystal remembered her promise to God, and she stepped forward again and again to tell her story. She quickly became the unofficial spokesperson for the Columbine students. She was interviewed on
Good Morning America, The Today Show,
CNN, and all of the Denver area news outlets. Wracked with depression and plagued by nightmares, Crystal wouldn’t speak to anyone for weeks unless it was in an interview, but she found comfort in telling the world about how God saved her.

Over the coming weeks, as she worked through her own emotions, Crystal began speaking to groups—local churches at first, and then rallies, youth conferences, school assemblies, festivals, press conferences, and retreats. She became a living testimony of God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God took Crystal’s damaged, wounded spirit—the one that had seen so much pain—and used it to help others heal. Later, traveling to war-torn Kosovo with Operation Christmas Child (an outreach of Samaritan’s Purse), Crystal met children who live every day with violence like that at Columbine. That event, coupled with others, led her to dedicate her life to speaking.

Now twenty-one and married, Crystal Woodman Miller continues to retell the story of her brush with death as a way to share the positive things that come from tragedy. She often quotes Genesis 50:20 when she speaks, a verse that so accurately describes her life and ministry: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Crystal knows there are cruel and scary things in this world. But she knows also there is One who is stronger, and she is putting her faith in Him.

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

(John
5:24
)

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tara

Girl on the Run

I
t all started with simple curiosity. Tara, a twelve-year-old Islamic girl, found herself intrigued by some Bible curriculum she had ordered from an advertisement in the local Pakistani paper. Tara was from a prominent, strict Muslim family. She knew there were no options when it came to religion. In her father’s eyes, there was no other religion but Islam.

But Tara was still drawn to what she was reading. Secretly, for two years, she studied every book of the Bible and finally completed the course. She was amazed at how much information the free curriculum provided. Soon after completing the study, she was sent a Bible with her name inscribed on it. Tara knew what would happen if she were caught with a Bible.

A year later, Tara completed her tenth year of school with high honors and was invited to participate in a comparative religion course in Iran. She eagerly accepted, but her family accompanied her.

There, she met a Christian for the first time. He was openly praying in a nearby courtyard. He invited her to a church service. Tara told her brother about the incident and pleaded with him to let her attend. She thought it would help with her research, she said, and finally she convinced him.

Tara entered the church, soaking in the thrilling, new experience. She recognized some of the words in the songs from reading the Bible. The sermon was about prayer, and the minister encouraged anyone with a need to come forward. A man walked up with a crippled child, asking for prayer. Tara couldn’t believe that Christians could approach God like that and just ask for healing. Despite her skepticism, she witnessed the young girl beginning to move. She was healed!

The church began to sing praises to the Lord. Tara was awestruck. The young girl walked over to Tara and said, “Emmanuel.” Afraid and unsure of what was happening, Tara was determined to find out more about this Christian faith. She went back home to read her Bible to find more answers. Yet she knew she needed to talk to other Christians to fully understand. So, she surreptitiously slipped out to attend a church service in her hometown.

Afterward, Tara had more questions than ever and went to meet the pastor. She thought it would be safe to talk openly with him, but she was wrong. The pastor grew more and more uncomfortable with Tara’s tenacity and finally contacted her father, telling him of her private visits.

Her father was enraged to discover the truth about Tara. His once-favored daughter had betrayed him. He angrily ordered her to her room, cursing at her. Later, realizing how out of control his emotions were, he went into Tara’s room to apologize. There, he found her weeping, reading her Bible. Repulsed by this, he struck her repeatedly, leaving her bruised and curled up in pain. Never had her father treated her that way before.

A few days later, her father apologized for his behavior. He and Tara’s brother made arrangements for her to marry, thinking that would take care of her interest in Christianity. But Tara shuddered at the thought of getting married—she was only sixteen. “No, Daddy, I do not want to marry. I’m too young. Who is he? What is his religion?”

Tara had asked an unpardonable question. She had exposed her acceptance of other faiths. Her father was then convinced his daughter really had converted to Christianity. He and her brother angrily pummeled her with whatever they could find in the room—the beautiful crystal lamps that once decorated her princess-like room, electric cords, and a rod from her closet. “Either you marry this Muslim man, or you die here alone. If you are a Christian, there is no place for you in this city.”

Tara’s beating left her bleeding in her room, fading in and out of consciousness for a few days. She knew she had to make a choice. When she was able, she gathered a small travel bag with a bit of money and her passport and escaped out her bedroom window. Although she was sore, stiff, and heartbroken, she set out to learn more about the God of the Bible.

Tara’s life on the run began. She first stopped at a city several hours from her home. There, through a church, she met an uncle she never knew about who had become a Christian back in the 1950s, when it was still legal to convert. He was a pastor, and Tara’s father had disowned him. Through him, the Lord provided safety and a place where Tara could ground her faith at the beginning of what would be a very long journey.

Tara quickly learned to trust her uncle and brought all of her questions about God to him. She finally learned what
Emmanuel
meant. She felt ready to pray for God’s forgiveness and make Him Lord of her life. She could then live with the assurance that Emmanuel—“God with us”—was in fact with
her
.

Soon, it became unsafe for Tara to live with her uncle anymore. Her father wanted to kill Tara and had learned of her whereabouts. Tearfully, she knew she had to leave her uncle. Arrangements were made for her to live with a pastor’s family in another distant city.

There, she was not allowed to come out of her room, for fear her brothers or father would find her. She spent many lonely days crying and trying to focus her attention on prayer and study. She knew if she went out in public, she would jeopardize her safety as well as that of the pastor’s family.

Finally, the pastor let her leave her room. She then went to work as the church secretary. The pastor knew Tara’s history and allowed her to minister to the covert Muslim converts. Tara began to understand how her testimony would strengthen others to follow Christ. She was able to live safely with this family for several years, baptizing former Muslims and Hindus and boldly evangelizing.

But one day, Tara ran into her cousin. She recognized him immediately. She quickly turned and started to walk away.

“Wait! I want to speak with you!” he called out.

She felt panic and fear run through her body and hailed a taxi. Once again, Tara was on the run, unsure of where God would take her next.

Later, she phoned her adopted family to tell them where she was. Tara was able to go back to them. But a church member, who was jealous of her beauty and strong faith, turned her in to the CID, Pakistan’s intelligence organization. Once again, she found herself crying out to God, Emmanuel, to save her from death.

Despite her circumstances, Tara’s faith continued to grow, and she knew God was using her life to help others. Danger was inevitable but she had made her choice—she was a disciple of Christ. Tara faced more threats, more betrayals, yet God continued to provide the right people at the right times in her life.

After more than ten years on the run, Tara is still running. Her family members have spotted her more than once, and she must continually be on guard. But in the midst of all the running, God has provided Tara with a Christian husband.

Most young women cannot imagine paying such a high price to claim Christianity. But this is a story of a real girl in Pakistan who is still running the race with God’s help.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

(Hebrews
12:1-3
)

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