God moved in an amazing way over the past couple weeks through this blog. I wanted to share with you, my readers, how. Honestly I still don't have the complete story straight yet, but there is one thing I know: Andrew Allard, age 13, has had the pleasure of seeing our God face to face...
You may recall I blogged on Andrew several weeks ago. He was the kid who loved the C28 store, told his friends about the store, and then died shortly thereafter. His story moved me - how he caught the evangelical vision of C28 and shared it with others. I was moved to tears hearing about how the store, and moreover Andrew's passion for evangelism, allowed us to minister to minister to his friends shortly after his death.
I was moved, so I blogged it.
Since posting the story, RUNwithGOD.com has seen almost a 500% increase in traffic. (I may be a good blogger, but I'm not that good). How are people coming in? They're googling "Andrew Allard" and reading a story about a kid whose passion was and is for God. We're talking, literally, hundreds of people every day since the story posted.
It became more than just a story, I wanted to find out more. I've exchanged e-mails with friends, his youth minister, family members and even his mother. They are all dealing with a very morbid situation of losing a loved one at such a young age, but in the midst of the sadness they all shared stories of Andrew's zeal for the Lord. Andrew's mom said it the best. Hopefully many "will be coming to the Lord through this impact our Andrew is STILL making in his God's Kindgom."
May that be said of us on our death... that weeks after our death our passion for God is so strong that it radiates from the grave. His mom and others came back into the store this past week, allowing us to minister to the family and pray for strength so they can endure the road ahead.
Andrew and a couple of his buddies formed a Rock Band. Believe it or not, I've enjoyed it in my iPod as of late. Check out the link here and listen to the song "Thank You God" which was written by Andrew.
God I don't understand why you took this little one into the Kingdom when he had so much potential here. Help us to trust Your timing, Your character, Your will.
Thanks for this post.
I am a friend of Buddy's oldest sister and have had the pleasure of meeting most of the rest of his family. I haven't seen Buddy since he was a very little boy, but I can say from the pictures he's the still the smiling, happy kid that I remember him to be.
I'm not surprised that he became part of a band. One of my memories of Buddy and Abigail were that of them singing at Melissa and Jeff's wedding when he was about 5 or 6. If my failing memory serves me right, the song they sang was "Jesus Loves Me."
I praise God that he knew God as his Savior and is grinning even bigger in heaven as we mourn the loss of his physical presence here on earth.
Posted by: Leslie K | 2007.03.15 at 12:31 AM