Teaming up on comfort

HMC works with local church to help community celebrate lives of five teenage boys

At a celebration of life event Sep. 9, in Grand Junction, CO, a grieving community was able to share their thoughts, sympathies, and words of comfort onto five LCC Hearts of Mercy & Compassion for the teenage boys who had lost their lives weeks earlier in a horrific car crash. 

However, without the quick work of the HMC Ministry teams, both in Colorado, and at the HMC home office in Illinois, the hearts might not have been there.

When the five Colorado teens died just days before school was to start, the HMC team at Redeemer (Fort Collins, CO) went into action. Although five hours away, the team brought hearts and crosses to the crash site where a memorial was starting to develop.

Unfortunately, the crosses couldn’t be erected at the site, and the HMC Ministry had to quickly make adjustments.

Through several phone calls, HMC Director Sarah Sekki was able to connect with the pastor of a local church—Lutheran Church of Messiah in Grand Junction—who partnered with HMC to make sure the hearts and crosses would be available for the teens and the community. Sekki worked with Pastor Redeker to form a team that could erect the crosses at a celebration of life to be held later and to provide spiritual comfort and presence for the community gathered at the event.

“It gave the local church an opportunity to support their own community,” said Sekki. “It’s cool that the Redeemer HMC team came all the way from the eastern part of the state, but God wanted their local church to be involved in this.”

The celebration of life memorial was held at the Las Colonias Amphitheater in Grand Junction with about 150 people attending: friends of the high-schoolers, family and kin, teachers, neighbors, and community members. An oversize screen showed photos of the boys while those gathered shared memories, stories and laughter as they remembered the five teenagers—Titus Gould, Tyler Kersey-Huffman, Braden Taylor, Tristan Tucker, and William Simms—all just 17 years old. The Grand Junction High School principal spoke near the end: “Their friendship reminds us that one of the greatest gifts we can give one another is simply this: To know and value each other.”

On the walkway up to the amphitheater, the five HMC hearts and crosses stood in front of large banners for each boy, showing their individual photos and providing the opportunity to write their thoughts on both the HMC hearts and the banners. 

The HMC teams, and the local church, went to great lengths to make sure the gift of hearts and crosses would be available to remember all five boys—and to provide comfort and spiritual presence where it was greatly needed for this Colorado community.