God's mysterious ways

Steve Davis was best man at my wedding. We met in class at Sunset School of Preaching (now Sunset International Bible Institute). He was from California (Marysville, outside of Sacramento) and I was from California (Lompoc, up the coast from Santa Barbara about 55 miles). For some reason we became instant friends. We teamed up with two other guys in class (David Cron and John Littlejohn). We were the "wolfpack." David was the only one of the bunch who was raised in the church. We asked a lot of questions. We didn't accept anything until we could see it. We weren't rebels in the usual sense, we just wanted to be sure. I'm sure we wore our teachers out. Steve was married (Cindy) when he came to Sunset and he had one son (Matthew). While at Sunset Cindy gave birth to another son Joel. I finally found a wife myself (the lovely Pat). Steve was obvious choice for my best man. We had a great wedding and great honeymoon.

Toward the end of school I had told the elders at Lompoc (the church that put me through school - with the help of my wonderful, supportive parents) that we would come back and work with them after school. Just after that promise, two churches showed up at Sunset wanting four families to go to Liberia. If not for my commitment to the church in Lompoc it would have been a match made in heaven. I wanted so bad to tell the elders I wasn't coming but my parents had taught me to keep my word (and so did the Lord!). So Pat and I finished the missions program and in July 1977 we headed to Lompoc. Steve and the rest of the "wolfpack" stayed for the third year graduate program at Sunset with plans to go to Liberia.

Steve and gang finished Sunset in January 1978. I had heard from Steve that they were having trouble getting visas to Liberia. Then I didn't hear much at all for awhile. One Saturday night in April 1978 we were having a youth devotional. Someone had prepared some questions that everyone was supposed to answer in an effort to get to know each other. One of the questions, "If you could get a phone call from anyone who would it be?" I naturally said Steve, since I hadn't heard from him. The next morning just before the alarm went off, the phone rang. Not it wasn't Steve it was Don Downey, Steve's father-in-law. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. He said, "Bob, Steve was killed last night in a traffic accident." Pat and I were crushed. That morning at worship, all we could do was cry (literally!). We had Joy Bus kids sitting in our laps who couldn't understand why we were crying.

We drove up to Marysville for the funeral. Everyone kept asking "why Steve?" and Cindy kept responding "Why not Steve?" It was a wonderful service for such a faithful young man. I miss those days in Sunset. But there is more to this story.