Losing a Son but not Losing Hope

Losing a Son but not Losing Hope

Sept. 10, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest(s): Dave Kistler

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 9/10/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Welcome to a very special edition of Stand In the Gap Today. I’m Jamie Mitchell, and joining me today is longtime American Pastors Network Board member and one of the original Stand in the Gap hosts, evangelists and President of Hope to the Hill, David Kissler. My guess is that you heard the news at the end of July of a plane crash that took the lives of the gospel singing group, the Nelons. They were flying to join the Gaither Homecoming cruise leaving from Seattle, yet their small plane went down over Wyoming and there were no survivors. On that plane was the pilot and his wife, Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband, Jason, their assistant, and their daughter Amber and husband Nathan. It is those last two names that bear significance for our American Pastors Network family. Nathan is the son of David and Betsy Kistler. Nathan and Amber were serving in Washington DC as executive directors of Hope to The Hill and a wonderful ministry there.

Jamie Mitchell:  They were musically talented, but more importantly, they loved the Lord Jesus with all their hearts. Any loss is overwhelming. Yet the ordeal of a plane crash being so high profile, the depth of ministry that they were involved with was heartbreaking. So I am so privileged that Dave is with us today to bring the Stand in the Gap family up to date on this tragedy, how they are faring, what they are seeing God doing. And I’ve entitled today Losing a Son, but never losing hope, and you will learn why that is a significant title. David, thank you my friend, for entrusting me with this opportunity to help you share this incredible story. I know God is going to use this program. Thanks for being here today.

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, it’s an honor to be here. Thank you for asking me to be aboard.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, I did not want to share too much about the events of July 26. Would you tell us what life was like just before that fateful Friday, and then when you heard the possible problems of Nathan and Amber’s flight and then the follow up to that, the proceeding hours and days after that?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, the day of the 26th started just like any normal day, Nathan, our son, wonderful young man, he calls me four or five times a day. We’ll talk about cars, we’ll talk about guns, we’ll talk about nothing, just laugh and have a good time, or we’ll talk about the ministry on Capitol Hill. But that day he called us early in the morning, I think it was about 7:30 if I remember correctly. And of course we knew they were going to board a flight in Carrollton, Georgia, along with Jason and Kelly and our daughter-in-law, Amber, Melody Hodges, and then the pilot, Larry Haney and his wife Melissa, and they were all going to head ultimately to Seattle, Washington. So about 7:30, Nathan called and we just conversed and then prayed, and I didn’t think anything much about the flight the rest of the day, but about one o’clock Eastern time, I texted Nathan and just said, Hey, just checking to see how your flight’s going.

Dave Kistler:       Never heard anything from him, not concerned by that because I know they were scheduled to stop somewhere in Nebraska for lunch, assuming that all that had happened, and it did. They arrived in Nebraska safely. But when they took off after refueling and having lunch from Nebraska, their next stop was going to be Billings, Montana, and that’s the leg of the flight that they did not complete. They went down over a little community called Gillette, Wyoming, and of course, my wife and I had gone into town later that evening. Again, not even thinking that there was a problem that we hadn’t heard from Nathan when they landed a place or when they arrive at a place, they have a lot of things to do to get ready for a musical performance. And so we just assumed all those things were taking place. But about nine o’clock at night while we were still out in town, I got a phone call from Gloria Gaither, Bill Gaither’s wife, and when she identified herself, honestly, Jamie, I thought it was Amber, our daughter-in-Law playing a trick on me.

Dave Kistler:       She would frequently do that. She would call, and we just had the kind of wonderful relationship where she would tease. And I was about to say, Amber, stop it. I know this is you. And thankfully I didn’t say that and I just said, excuse me. And when Gloria said a second time, this is Gloria Gaither, I recognized it was her voice. And so she was the one that actually informed us that the plane had gone down. And at that time, what she knew was that they did not think, the authorities out there did not think that there could be any survivors. We did not know that to be the case until much later in the evening.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, one of the goals I’ve had for this program was to allow people to understand the emotions, the personal struggles that any of us would go through when life deals as trials. The first few days must have been difficult for you and Betsy and the rest of your family. What was going on in your mind? And if possible, what kind of conversations were you having with the Lord?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, I don’t mind telling you. My wife could hear a little bit of what Gloria was saying through my phone. She was standing very close to me and she could tell the concern on my face when the call came in and she said, what’s going on? And I just said, the plane didn’t make it to Billings, Montana. And of course she just kind of collapsed against the wall of the building we were in. And I grabbed her and held onto her and I said, we need to get to the car and we need to get home. And so the hours that followed, the days that followed, of course, we were just trying to process this. Nathan was 34, Amber was 35, and of course the ages of the other precious people on the flight, I won’t discuss because you wanted to focus on just Nathan and Amber, and fittingly.

Dave Kistler:       So we were just trying to understand what happened. We began getting calls from both the coroner and Gillette, Wyoming, a gentleman named Paul, tremendous person, and also a representative with a National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, a gentleman named Derek. Both of those guys I’ve become, I would say quite close to, but just asking all the questions anyone would ask and why now? Why to two incredibly dedicated young people? And Jamie, I know in the latter part of the program, we’ll discuss some of this. We have snippets of answers to those questions, but we don’t have the full picture, but I can tell you this, we know where they are and with whom they are, but God is crafting a beautiful mosaic that is going to accomplish maybe more in their homegoing then the significant things accomplished through them during their short, but powerfully lived lives.

Jamie Mitchell:  Friends, as believers, we are not insulated from suffering. A matter of fact, the Bible says that we will all experience various trials, how we grapple with them, how we respond, and what we clinging to reveals much about our relationships with the Lord. I dare say that if you’re not where you need to be and this kind of trial comes your way, it can collapse you. God has prepared Dave and Betsy and his family, but we can’t wait for the trial to come. We need to be prepared for it. That’s why I wanted to have this program today. I wanted you to consider these things. These kinds of things are not isolated. And so when we come back who were Nathan and Amber, I want to learn a little bit about them and what God was doing in their lives and how special they were. Come back in just a few moments joining Dave Kisser and I for a very special stand in the gap today.

Jamie Mitchell:  Welcome back. You’re listening to a very special program today as our own Dave Kissler shares with us the difficult journey he and his family have walked these past two months after the sudden and tragic loss of their son, Nathan, their daughter-in-law, Amber, due to a plane crash in July, Dave, as Chris and I were sitting at the memorial service for your kids here in North Carolina and hearing so many wonderful tributes, my heart hurt because I realized I had never gotten to meet Nathan or Amber. How sad for me, Dave, I know you’re a proud father, so I know this will be easy in some respects. Tell the audience about Nathan, about your sweet daughter-in-Law. Who were they? How did they meet and what were they doing for the Lord?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, thank you for giving me the privilege to be on, and of course to share this, our son Nathan, was what I’ve often called our renaissance man. He came to know the Lord as a young man, but he was incredibly gifted. Most people know him for his singing voice, but he also played the guitar. He played the violin, was classically trained on the violin. A lot of people didn’t know how well he could play, but he could play. The trumpet, taught himself to play that harmonica anything. He was just very gifted, but had a lot of other interests. He loved guns and he loved cars, and one of his friends said this, I think it’s the most apt description I’ve ever heard of, Nathan. He said, when I met Nathan, I was in awe of him because he was the only person I’d ever met who could crawl under your car and fix it.

Dave Kistler:       He could install a hundred thousand dollars audio and video system in your house, which Nathan had done for this gentleman. He could repair your computer, he could sing with absolutely the best people on the planet, which he had done. He loved the Lord, but he could be a complete goofball at the same time. Nathan loved to laugh. He loved life, and that was Nathan. Amber, our daughter-in-Law. Most people know her from her singing family. She was a Dove Award-winning artist, beautiful voice. Nathan and Amber sang together. Some of their music is online. I would encourage our listeners to go listen, but they met when Nathan was 14 and Amber was 15. I was preaching in a church where the Nelons were serving as ministers of music at that time, they were not out on the road traveling, and Nathan came back to our RV that we were traveling in and said, dad, I met the girl I’m going to marry.

Dave Kistler:       And, of course, we sort of chuckled and because he had said that maybe once or twice before, but he never forgot. Never forgot about that young lady. In fact, all of his passwords for his computer and phone, everything had some association with Amber. And so something was going on there. It was years later, Nathan was now working as our director on Capitol Hill. He called me one day and said, dad, I’d like to screen a film for members of Congress. That had never been done before. And I said, have you got a film in mind? A movie in mind? He said, I do. It’s called A Question of Faith. Well, the more I talked with him, he said, dad, there’s a number of well-known actors in that movie, C. Thomas Howell. There were numbers of other actors that if I mentioned their names, he would be very well-known.

Dave Kistler:       And he said, but there’s also a young lady named Amber Nelon Thompson. Well, that’s the girl that became our daughter-in-Law, and didn’t take me too long, put two and two together. Nathan was working an angle trying to get back into her life because he had never stopped loving her. And sure enough, they came. A lot of the actors, Kim Fields, who used to be on a weekly program called The Facts of Life. She was in the movie as a host of others, but they all came to DC to be part of that screening. It was a wonderful evening, and Nathan took Amber over to the Jefferson Memorial and basically did not propose to her, but just told her, look, I’ve never stopped loving you, and could we start a relationship up again, much more mature people this time. But that’s where it started. A couple years later, they were married. They were married for five years, and God just used them both individually, but use them as a team to impact lives around the globe and certainly on Capitol Hill.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, I know that Nathan especially, but also Amber had a tremendous ministry in Washington DC and was influencing and impacting members of Congress. What was their ministry there and what have you heard from some of those politicians that they interacted with?

Dave Kistler:       That’s a great question, Jamie. What Nathan would do is he would go in to the offices of members of Congress, both sides of the aisle. It didn’t matter, and he would offer to pray for them to help them periodically throughout the year, four times a year. Basically, we have what we call congressional outreaches where we will literally over the course of about three days, two and a half days, we will visit every single member of Congress, all 435 in the house, all 100 in the United States Senate, and we typically take something with us to present to them. It may be a challenge coin, it may be a season of this wonderful series on the life of Christ called the Chosen. It may be some Christian movie company that has provided one of their most recent releases that we present to each of the members of Congress or to their office.

Dave Kistler:       But four times a year we visit every single member of Congress. So then there’s special events throughout the year that we would do interacting with members of Congress, bringing large numbers of people to the Capitol to do concerts and just to minister in different and unique ways. But it was a powerful, powerful ministry, and we’ve been doing it part-time and full-time for about 20 years. But when Nathan came on as our executive director about nine, 10 years ago, everything went to a whole other level and the impact, Jamie has been significant members of Congress love them so much that coming up tomorrow, the 11th of September, they have insisted that we do a memorial service in DC for Nathan and Amber. And so that’s going to take place at the Museum of the Bible at 6:15 PM tomorrow, September 11, unique day, a God ordained day, I believe, for this memorial to take place.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, when all this happened, I think if I have this right, Congress was on recess, and so the word had to get out, not necessarily with all the members of Congress there in Washington, but the word did get out when we went to the memorial service, a number of them spoke and really spoke of how they made a difference. One of the things I thought was pretty interesting was they would use their musical talents in the offices of these congressmen and senators. Tell us about that.

Dave Kistler:       Well, yes, Jamie. They did. In fact, there’s many music lovers on Capitol Hill, gospel music lovers on Capitol Hill, and one of the most powerful things that Nate and Amber and any of the guests that Nate would invite as far as musical guests, some of the most well-known musicians in gospel music have been a part of our outreaches to members of Congress. We would do concerts for them that were for all of them to come to, and that would be on a designated evening in one of the large rooms there in the Capitol building. But the most effective ministry was when Nate would take musicians or he himself or he and Amber together, would walk into the office of an individual member of Congress and do a private concert for them. And when I say private concert, I don’t mean 30 minutes worth, it would be five to 10 minutes worth, and they would just interact and laugh and talk and sing. And members of Congress have said this, when you love me enough to come in and do that just for me and for my staff, it just screams the love of Jesus. And so that’s what they would do, and they loved it. And the impact, Jamie, again, thank the Lord for it has been beyond profound.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave Chaplain, Barry Black spoke at the memorial and his words were so impactful. Is there anybody from Capitol Hill that you’ve heard from that was a surprise to you that really touched you and Betsy in maybe a unique way in the last few weeks? Yeah,

Dave Kistler:       Jamie, there is, and of course I won’t mention names, but if I mentioned the names, if I were to do that, everybody would know who I’m talking about. But yes, there’s been members of Congress that have reached out and just overwhelmingly, I mean overwhelmingly expressed their condolences, their love, their deep love and affection for Nathan and Amber, their appreciation for them and the ministry that they had, and then by extension their deep love and affection for my wife, Betsy and I, for our family. And this has not just been one time, this has been ongoing from multiple members of Congress. One member, former member of Congress drove all the way from Texas to be at the memorial, and I didn’t even know that he was coming, but he was one of Nathan’s favorites. And this member of Congress loved Nathan. Many times I’ve been in that office, Nathan had been in that office conversing, praying with encouraging, talking with that particular member, prominent member of the United States House of Representatives, but drove all the way from Texas just to be a part of it.

Dave Kistler:       Jamie, that speaks volumes. And again, well beyond just the members of Congress, there’s been tens of thousands, and I’m not exaggerating, tens of thousands of texts, phone calls, emails, Facebook messages that have come in from people all over the globe, some that we know, many that we don’t know that have been impacted by what they have heard or what they knew of Nathan and Amber, if they knew them personally or what they’ve heard by via the many reports that have been on the news about the accident or they watched one of the memorials and their life has forever changed. So Jamie, it’s been astounding.

Jamie Mitchell:  I just mentioned to you before we went on, I tell my sister about this, she attends her church here in Raleigh. She brings it up in the Sunday school class, the Sunday after everything happened, and someone comes up to her and says, Nathan used to attend this church. And so his impact, his reach, we dare say that we will never know fully the reach until heaven and the Lord might have found a fit to take Nathan and Amber, but the impact of their lives remain. Paul tells us that the message he shared was written on people’s hearts, and so it was with Nathan and Amber. When we return, what has the response been? What kind of fruit is being born through this difficult tragedy? Join back with us in just a few moments here, few on Standing the Gap today. Well, welcome back. We are hearing a testimony today. I once heard that a biography is the story of what you did with your life. A testimony is a story of what God did with your life. I like that Dave Kistler has a testimony and he’s sharing it today with us that comes from the loss this summer of his son and daughter-in-Law from a plane crash. And Dave, before we go any further, how is Betsy, how are your sweet daughters and the rest of your family, and how are the Nelon family doing?

Dave Kistler:       Well, let me start with the Nelon family. I’ve been in communication with them. Some life is crazy busy for them. It’s crazy busy for us. They’re grieving and hurting, obviously. They’re working through their grief, and one of the ways they’re doing it is with the release of a brand new project that was completed before the tragedy occurred. It released just a couple of days ago. From what I understand, within the first hours of its release, it went all the way to the top of the charts that is available to folks out there that want to go and purchase it. For our family, it’s been the most difficult thing, Jamie, we’ve ever walked through. But I can tell you this, God’s grace is not just sufficient. God’s grace is abundant and we’ve felt it and sensed it and lived in the blessing of it every day.

Dave Kistler:       And my bride is doing well. Of course, we have our moments, all the messages that are coming in, we have things said to us or sent to us that we didn’t maybe know about. And I’m talking about maybe a song Nathan recorded for somebody, or a lady just a couple of days ago sent me a brief snippet from 10 years ago. She and her husband were out celebrating her husband’s birthday. This was in August of that year, and he died in February of the next year, just a few months later. But Nathan was at the same restaurant. Nathan saw this couple, he knew them, came over, found out it was the gentleman’s birthday. He had two buddies with him that travel and sing, one of them very well known right now, but he brought the two guys over to the table and they sang Happy Birthday in Three Part Harmony. And someone in the family recorded that and she sent it over to me. I’d never seen it, but it was priceless. It was pure gold. And so we’re finding out these things that we didn’t even know that are a blessing of the life and the impact of Nate and Amber. And I’ll tell you, it doesn’t ease all the pain, Jamie, but it sure does make it easier when you understand they serve the Lord everywhere and they just loved people and loved Jesus.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, I want to take a little change here. When I was at the memorial service, I went through the line. I came up to you, I was just overwhelmed and you were an encouragement to me because I was standing there having one son like you do, and saying to myself, boy, what if I had lost my Alex? What must Dave be going through? And then I had this flood of emotions about feeling cheated so young, so much of life. Dave, how do you grapple with that? How do you work through that? I think people need to understand that because these are real things that happen to us. We’re not super men. We’re not superhuman, but we have a supernatural God living in us. How have you walked through that very, very difficult experience?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, in all candor, we’ve asked every question that anyone else would ask as I alluded to earlier, why now if you have as we do, and not too far from our house, we have some folks that have chosen to live a lifestyle that is the complete antithesis of a biblical lifestyle. It involves some drugs and different things. And you have to ask the question, why would two people who the Lord be taken and people that don’t have any regard for God whatsoever, why are they left? And I’m reminded of Psalm 73, which talks about that where the psalmist said I was envious at the workers of iniquity. It seemed like their strength was firm and everything was going great for them. He said, until I went into the sanctuary and I understood their end, in other words, the end of the lifestyle of the one who chooses to disregard God, it never ends well, the end of those who choose to follow Jesus, receive them as Savior and give their life and dedication to him as Nate Amber so powerfully did, and the others on that plane, their end is quite different.

Dave Kistler:       It ends incredibly well. They hear the well done good and faithful servant. And so that is very helpful to understand that. It’s incredibly helpful to understand we will see them again and we know where they are and with whom they are, if I could word it again that way. But to see the impact of their life. Nathan and Amber probably lived more in their 34 and 35 years respectively. They crammed more of life into that than most people do in three lifetimes. They traveled the world, they ministered everywhere. They got all kinds of opportunities that God gave them. And one final thing I’ll say, Jamie, I got thinking about this. Jesus gave his, excuse me, God, the Father gave his son Jesus, who died at the age of 33, and Nathan was 34 and 35. And Jesus fulfilled accomplished his mission of redemption on this earth in 33 years.

Dave Kistler:       And so for Nathan and for Amber, their mission was fulfilled at the age of 33 and 34. And Revelation 13 or chapter 14, verse 13 says this, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, right, blessed are the dead which die. The Lord from henceforth ye Seth, the Spirit that they may rest from their labors. Nathan and Amber’s labor here on Earth has ended. But the next part of verse 13 of Revelation 14 says this, and their works do follow them. You know what? Though? They have gone on to heaven and their labor has ended, their legacy has not. In fact, their legacy is enlarging and increasing as people find out more about them and the impact of their lives. So in many ways, they’re continuing and will continue to reap all kinds of dividends, for lack of a better way to say it, reap eternal rewards, accomplish a wonderful ministry through their homegoing. In some ways that could not even be accomplished in their life,

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, only somebody who walks with the Lord can respond in that way. And that’s the challenge to our listeners today. I want you to tell one last story that I heard at the memorial, and that is something that the official investigating found and gave to you. It is why I entitled today, losing a Son but Not Losing Hope. What was that special coin that was found and tell the significance of that?

Dave Kistler:       Delighted to Jamie. Our ministry produces a thing called a challenge coin. If anybody was in the military, they know what challenge coins are. Officers can have their own challenge coin made. We produced numbers of issues of them, different styles for our ministry, but we would give them to members of Congress or Nathan would hand them to someone. I carry a few sometimes and we’ll hand them to someone that’s impacted our life. But Nathan always kept two in his pocket and he kept others perhaps in his luggage or his computer bag, but he always kept two in his pocket. If he met someone that impacted him, he would give those challenge coins to them and say, thank you for impacting my life for your service. Well, there were numbers of items found at the crash site. Much of it because of the nature of the crash was destroyed and unusable.

Dave Kistler:       Some things perhaps unrecognizable, but both the coroner and the NTSB rep said, we found initially two of them, they ultimately found two more. They found a total of four. And they told me, they said, these are totally undamaged. And Jamie at the memorial service, you and your sweet wife Chris attended. I had one of them in my hand, kept it in my hand the entire time my wife and our two daughters had the other three in their possession at that memorial service. But it was one of those or four of those challenge coins amidst everything, even currency coinage that was bent and distorted beyond recognition. These four coins with hope to the hill on them were completely undamaged. And the coroner and the NTSB rep said, we cannot explain that. We have no explanation. And up to that point, I had not told them much about who Amber and Nathan were, but I said, guys, if you’ve got a few minutes, I’m going to tell you why I believe they were undamaged and other things were damaged.

Dave Kistler:       And I told them about our son, Nathan and his ministry on the hill. It gave me an occasion to share the gospel actually with both men on that phone call. What’s come of that, Jamie is just amazing. Some of that I won’t go into here on the program, but it’s fascinating to me that the only thing that survived untouched, undamaged was a coin that had the word hope. And I’m not talking about our ministry hope to the hill. I’m talking about hope in Jesus Christ, that which will survive the storms of life. Jamie, is if we have hope in Jesus, we know him as Savior, we know where our eternal destiny is going to be and it’s going to be heaven. And anyone that does not yet know that that’s listening to this program today, you can call out to him right where you are and I would implore you to do so. Ask him to forgive you, come into your heart and life and save you and he will. And you’ll experience what the Bible calls the peace that passes all understanding and the hope of Jesus return and a lot more I could cheer, but I’ll leave it at that.

Jamie Mitchell:  Wow. Wow. What encouragement? I had one friend who died during the 911 attacks. He was on flight 93 and when they went through the crash site in Pennsylvania, they found his new international version Bible hardback. And in it was a list of everybody he had prayed for. And that’s on display at America’s Keswick. Today it’s cherished because it tells us much about the person. When we come back, Dave will share what he believes God may be doing through this trial, how God is going to multiply the impact of Nathan and Amber as we finish up this very special stand in the gap today. As I said at the beginning of this program, I feel a tremendous sense of both privilege but also responsibility to interview my dear friend and colleague, Dave Kissler as he rounds all that has occurred this summer through the loss of his son, Nathan and daughter-in-law, Amber and Dave. As believers when loss and heartache like you’ve experience occurs, we look at it differently. We examine it, trying to gain God’s eyes and God’s heart looking for the purposes that God is going to accomplish. And God never wastes any sorrow. God always has the what, even though we may never learn the why. And Dave, what do you believe God might be doing and what are you asking the Lord for through this loss?

Dave Kistler:       That’s the $64,000 question. I will say this. In 1956, 5 missionaries died on a sandbar in Ecuador. And the names of those missionaries were Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Oderian, Ed McCulley, Pete Fleming. And they were young men. Some of them were athletes, others of them were very successful in the business world, legal world, but they all left those things behind to go to the Auca Indians in the country of Ecuador. And Auca literally means naked savage. And no one had really, as a white man, had come in contact with them to try to share the gospel with them. That was what Jim Elliot wanted to do. This whole story is chronicled in Elizabeth Elliot’s wonderful book called Through Gates of Splendor. There was a tremendous drama called Bridge of Blood where they, through their deaths, these five men’s deaths built a bridge to the ACA Indians.

Dave Kistler:       Well, they died. They perished as a result of trying to interact with them to share the gospel. But some of the wives stayed behind and continued to try to reach that savage tribe. And ultimately, the entire tribe came to Christ. Again. I would highly recommend Elizabeth Elliot’s book through Gates of Splendor. I remember as a young man in 1968, picking up a life magazine from my grandmother. She collected them, had them on a shelf. And while I was down there as just a very young man, nine or 10 years of age, I picked up that magazine, saw the title Five Missionaries, die in Ecuador, thumbed through it, read the story, gripped my heart. I’ve never forgotten it. And the single Jamie, the single greatest expansion of missions worldwide occurred in the 12 months that followed the death of those five missionaries in 1956. In fact, I’m looking right now in my studio, my study at a magazine, that very magazine, someone heard me talk about this and brought it and gave it to me a copy of it.

Dave Kistler:       And the long and short of it is this. What I’ve been praying for and asking God to do is not only bring many, many souls into the kingdom, many be saved as a result of this, what the world calls a tragedy. But there would be an addition, 1 million, 1 million new servants, 1 million new preachers, missionaries, evangelists, people that would be those that would go out into the harvest field just like happened as a result of the deaths of those five missionaries in 1956. God, would you do something like that again, but even more so to the tune of 1 million new servants of our Lord. And I can tell you this, Jamie, I hear daily, I mean the first two and a half weeks, it was from six in the morning till 1 1 30 the next morning, nonstop messages coming in of people whose lives have been so dramatically impacted, they were saved as a result, they’ve gotten right with God.

Dave Kistler:       As a result, they’ve yielded their lives fully to the Lord. As a result, one young man in the one young man in the music world drove all the way from Nashville, Tennessee to where we were at a memorial service just to tell me how God had transformed his life as a result of this. And so Jamie, the impact up to this point has been beyond significant and we’re just on the front end of it. And so what God’s going to do, I have no way of fully knowing. There’s been some discussions about possibly a book and maybe beyond that, some hints at perhaps a movie and all kinds of things that may tell some of the story. But the bottom line is this, God’s at work. We’re watching him work, and we’re just trying to say, Lord, help us represent you. Well help us to reflect you well through all of this,

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, give us an update on hope to the Hill. Nathan was such an integral part there. What is happening with the ministry in Washington dc?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, the ministry is continuing on. There’s been a lot of people asking us, will it continue? Of course, we have an interim director, one of our prior ministers on our team, Dr. George Roller, and we have other team members myself going to be assuming a little bit more responsibility here on the short term. But the ministry is moving forward just at breakneck speed. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. We have coming up tomorrow, we have this memorial service for Nathan and Amber. They’re at the Museum of the Bible there in DC. It is open to the public. If you show up there and get in line about five 30 in the afternoon, you’ll be allowed into the building. You’ll go through brief security and then you can make your way and join us for this memorial service there at the Museum of the Bible.

Dave Kistler:       But Jamie, the ministry is just moving forward. And I’m reminded of this, and this is the illustration I’ll give. It is set of Samson, one of the judges in the book of judges that he accomplished more in his death than he did in his life. And though none of us would ever want it this way or wish it to be this way, or if we had a chance to go back and undo what happened on the 26th of July, in one sense we would certainly do that. But I think what God is beginning to show us is that he is up to something so special and so significant that what’s going to happen as a result of the homegoing of Nathan and Amber is going to be beyond even the already phenomenally significant lives that they lived and impact they had during life. And so we’re just watching God work and trying to stay out of his way and not miss any of it up.

Jamie Mitchell:  Dave, we’ve got about a minute or two left. I want you to speak to our listeners who you and I get a privilege to minister to and encourage. The process of grief is an important one if they go through a difficulty. We’re not to be super men and women. We are to mourn, we’re to grieve and that’s important. But what word of encouragement as we close now, would you give our listeners about grieving and mourning?

Dave Kistler:       Well, Jamie, you’re right. We have grieved, certainly privately. We have grieved together as a family. I’ve done some of my grieving this week. This is my first week back preaching. I had five weeks, almost six weeks I guess off just because I wasn’t ready, had to cancel some things. But some of my grieving has been done publicly this week from the pulpit. And I don’t mean, I don’t mean inappropriate I don’t think, but just sharing with people what God is teaching me. So it’s not wrong to grieve, cry or scream, and cry out to God and clinging tenaciously to him. And there are stages of grief, and I won’t go through what some people would call the clinical stages of grief. There are those and they are real. But the fact of the matter is this. The only way anyone can make it through something like this is to clinging desperately and tenaciously to the Lord. He is our refuge and our strength. He is our very present help in this particular time of trouble.

Jamie Mitchell:  And we don’t grieve like ones who don’t have hope, do we, Dave? We have hope.

Dave Kistler:       We don’t. No, we don’t. Shame it.

Jamie Mitchell:  We’re clinging to hope. We cling to hope. Dave Kistler. We continue to pray for you, Betsy, your dear family, and especially the eternal fruit that it’s going to be seen for years to come. Thank you for entrusting this story with us. Friends, you’re facing loss, tragedy like the Kistlers. Two things I know. You’re never going to be able to navigate it without knowing the Lord Jesus and to have your heart built up and you’re going to need supernatural courage. Courage is what we need. So today, live and lead with courage in whatever trial comes. Thank you for entrusting us with this hour as you do each day here, and stand in the gap today.