Darrell Scott - Chain Reaction: A Call to Compassionate Revolution

Chain
Reaction

A CALL TO
COMPASSIONATE REVOLUTION

Darrell Scott

Copyright 2001 by Darrell Scott

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations noted NIV are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by Permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

ISBN 0-7852-6680-1

Printed in the United States of America.

1 2 3 4 5 6 - 06 05 04 03 02 01

Contents

This book is dedicated to Rachel Joy Scott.

May her memory remain alive through the chain reaction
she started by acts of kindness.

Rachel, I love you.

S pecial thanks to my wife, Sandy, who has been an incredible support. Thanks to Steve Rabey, Wes Yoder, Tim Grable, Bob and Terry Cornuke, Paul and Nancy Cornuke, Josh and Dottie McDowell, Paul Jackson, Bob Mumford, Wayne and Betsy Worthy, John and Kimberly Curtis, John and Doreen Tomlin, Michael W. Smith, Bryan Boorujy, Gary and Billie Jean Bauer, Wes Cantrell, Tom Lang, Bruce Porter, Bill Epperhart, Dana Scott, Craig Scott, Mike Scott, Don and Bethanee McCandless, Buz and Nancy Hicks, my dad and mom, Grandma Kaye, Ryan Hollingshead, Cory Hollingshead, Tyler Hollingshead, all my friends at Thomas Nelson Publishers, all my friends at Ambassador Agency, and the millions of young people who will carry Rachels legacy.

Be sure to check our Web site at: www.RachelScott.com
or
www.TheColumbineRedemption.com

I met Darrell Scott for the first time while he was still freshly grieving over the loss of his beautiful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, who was killed in the terrible tragedy at Columbine High School. Since that moment of tragedy we have developed a close personal relationship that has truly impacted my life.

Darrell has spoken to over a million people since I first met him, speaking continually in colleges, high schools, churches, football stadiums, civic centers, and arenas. The message he shares about his daughters life and writings has positively changed the lives of countless young people around the world.

His message goes much farther and much deeper than just the Columbine tragedy. This book is Darrells personal challenge to you and me, the reader, to start a chain reaction with our lives that affects the lives of those around us and beyond. It is a powerful challenge, based on his daughters legacy, that offers new hope and purpose for your life.

Josh McDowell
Author and International
Youth Speaker

1
The Calm at the
Center of the Storm

M erely mention the word Columbine in a conversation and the reaction you get demonstrates that the Denver area high school where my daughter and eleven other students and one teacher were killed has unfortunately become the most famous high school in the world.

A writer for Time magazine summarized the tragedy and its challenge to all of us:

With each passing day of shock and grief you could almost hear the church bells tolling in the background, calling the country to a different debate, a careful conversation in which even presidents and anchormen behave as though they are in the presence of something bigger than they are.

Even people in Israel and Northern Irelandregions of the world we think of as troubled hot spotsimmediately associate the word Columbine with internationally televised images of the chaos and killing that erupted shortly before noon on April 20, 1999, when two angry and heavily armed students walked into the school and opened fire.

I realized how Columbine has become a symbol for tragedy around the world when I was in Iran in the summer of 2000. I had gone there with my friend Bob Cornuke and a team of adventurers to visit and research a mountain near the Turkish border. Part of the team included my dear friend John Tomlin, whose son was also killed that tragic day at Columbine.

We pitched our tents next to a nomad village high up on the mountainside. Sheep were everywhere and even some camels grazed nearby. I had our interpreter ask the teenage boys in the village if they had ever heard of the tragedy at Columbine, and to my amazement they all began to nod their heads. What really got to me, though, was that a couple of them had actually seen Rachels funeral on CNN when they had visited the nearby city of Ardibil. Here I was in a nomad village thousands of miles from America talking to teenagers who knew about my daughter!

For me and for many of the people whose lives have been directly touched by the Columbine tragedy, the past two years have been something like living through a daily hurricane.

Internally, there has been a constant feeling of loss and grief about lives so full of promise that were indiscriminately snuffed out years before their time. Externally, there has been the storm of media coverage and the pain and turmoil resulting from ongoing investigations into the crime.

As in most tragedies of this kind there are, justifiably, numerous lawsuits that affect both innocent and guilty parties. There is the insidious toll on personal finances and relationships. There is the aftermath of myriad tortured memories that spring up at unexpected moments.

Two suicides in Columbine-area families that have been touched by the killings only add to the sorrow and serve as painful reminders of the bitter fruit that can resultsometimes many years laterfrom the destructive deeds that people do.

My son Craig was one of the people deeply affected by the tragedy. He saw his friends Matt Kechter and Isaiah Shoels murdered on either side of him as the three huddled together underneath a table in the Columbine library.

Craigs trauma from seeing his classmates killed would have been terrible enough, but he also has the memory of hearing the gunshots that killed his sister Rachel, who was sitting in the grass just outside the library walls. Craigs struggles to deal with all of this were partly documented and seen by millions of Americans during a broadcast on NBCs Dateline.

My purpose in writing this book isnt to wallow in the sorrows of the Columbine tragedy. Rather, this book reflects a radical hope and contains a challenge to everyone to see the hope that can often lie hidden beneath the horrors of life.

This book is a record of lessons learned during two difficult years, of calm found at the center of a storm, and of a hope-filled message about how each of us can help change our world into a place where fewer tragedies like Columbine happen.

A Memorial of Love

The Taj Mahal is a majestic building in northern India made of hundreds of tons of white marble and surrounded by gardens and pools. Hailed as one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal was built by some twenty thousand workers between 1632 and 1653.

This massive building wasnt constructed as a palace for its builder, the Indian ruler Shah Jahan. Rather, he erected it as a memorial for his beloved wife.

In a sense, this book is my Taj Mahal for Rachel. But the memorial I am building is not made out of marble and mortar. Rather, Im remembering Rachel with this book by continuing her legacy and tryinglike herto positively impact the lives of other people.