Most of you know what happened this past Saturday over in
Afghanistan.  Four men from Indiana lost their lives when the
vehicle they were driving ran over a land mine.  Most of you know
one of the men killed, Brett Hershey, and I know many of you are
mourning his death and praying for his family.  Well, I just have another prayer request for
you.

I went to high school with one of Brett’s fellow soldiers who was also
killed on Saturday.  His name was Kyle Snyder.  He was a year
older than me, but I knew him fairly well.  He was involved in my
youth group and we were on the bowling team together my sophomore
year.  He and my brother were pretty good friends.  Even
though Kyle and I weren’t the best of friends, I’m still mourning his
death.  Over the past few days, I keep thinking about little
memories of Kyle, mainly ones shared in youth group. 

I was reading 1 Peter in my Bible today, and I read across a
verse.  1 Peter 2:2 – “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual
milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”  The
summer after my sophomore year (I think) my youth group went to a
summer conference at Kentucky Christian College called Summer in the
Son (SITS), and Kyle came with us.  Kyle was kind of our entire
youth group’s project if you will.  He had been hanging out for a
while and you could tell that he wanted to turn his life over to
Christ, so we were all encouraging him all week.  He made that
decision while we were there, and he ended up getting baptized shortly
after we returned home.  While at SITS, our youth minister had a
little tradition of reading this verse to the people who decided to
turn their lives over to Christ, encouraging them to stay plugged in
and stay in the Word.  He then had them jug a class of milk. 
I remember all of us all gathered around Kyle as he began to jug the
milk.  We were all so happy for him.  He was filled with such
joy.  It was definitely just one of those moments.  You all
know what kind of a moment I’m talking about.  Just one of those
moments when you’re filled with joy to see an new brother or sister in
Christ. 

Anyway, that was just a fun little memory that I had of Kyle today that
I wanted to share with all of you.  It didn’t really hit me until
today of what actually happened to Kyle.  He was the first one
from Sullivan to be killed.  He was the first one I knew
personally to be killed.  As they all say, it doesn’t really hit
you until it happens to someone you love and care about.  Kyle was
a great kid.  He loved to joke around, and he had a great
heart.  As we went on through high school, Kyle started to grow
away from the youth group, and I know that he was struggling for a
while.  This really worried me with him being in
Afghanistan.  I feel very encouraged after hearing all about Brett
and what an amazing man of God he was.  I imagine and hope that he
and Kyle grew to be friends and that maybe Brett helped Kyle grow in
his faith.  I’ve heard from his family that Kyle seemed like a
different person when they would talk to him on the phone, that he had
matured and grown.  This encourages me.

I have a few other friends from high school who are still in
Afghanistan and Iraq.  After hearing about Kyle, it really hit
home how serious of a situation they are all in.  As everyone else
has been saying, please just keep the service men and women in your
prayers.  Please keep Kyle’s family in your prayers as well as I
know they are mourning their loss.