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BAMBI: Missing for more than 20 years
| OCTOBER, 2008 FEATURED ARTICLE |
| BAMBI: Missing for more than 20 years. -By Deb Harrell "When Prayer Seems unanswered" In the Spring of 1991, I attended an "Experiencing God" Leadership Training seminar in Drain, Oregon, led by Dr. Henry Blackaby, who was then the Director of Prayer and Spiritual Awakening for the North American Mission Board. In a special session on prayer, Dr. Blackaby challenged us to recall incidents of prayer when we asked for one thing, but God gave us something different instead. One long-standing prayer came to mind instantly, but any connection between the prayer and being given something different eluded me. I just could not see it. I realized I was letting some secret sin hinder my seeing the answers, so I asked the Holy Spirit to show me my sin. He showed me that I was disappointed with God and actually holding it against Him that this major and very reasonable prayer still seemed un-answered. In faith (even though my feelings did not line up yet...), I confessed my disappointment to God...and He opened my eyes and heart to receive a most precious dose of living grace. THE PRAYER: The prayer has to do with the disappearance of one of my younger sisters, Bambi Brantley, who vanished without a trace October 22, 1986 and is still missing. Many people have been lifting our family up in prayer faithfully all these years. That is why I want to show you that our prayers have NOT gone unanswered, after all. Unless you have experienced this kind of limbo, it is impossible to describe the never-ending struggle between presuming Bambi is dead, and hoping to keep her alive somehow through our "steadfast" faith…grasping at a straw that she may be wandering around somewhere with amnesia. The possibilities and fears about what happened to her are as limitless as our imaginations and each possibility is worse than the last. Beautiful young women, like Bambi, are snatched off the streets every day, never to be heard from again. It seemed reasonable to ask God to just let us know if she is dead and to give us a body to bury, so that we could grieve, heal, mourn and then try to get on with our lives. One scripture which gave me great comfort and hope in the beginning was found in Ec. 6:3, which says that if a man does not have a proper burial, it is better that he never lived. Well, since Bambi was saved within the year before she disappeared, I knew it surely could not be said it was better that she never lived. Study notes and unfinished letters tucked in her Bible bore witness to her salvation and growth in Christ, and gave us all tremendous peace about her salvation. In fact, these letters and study notes were very instrumental in bearing fruit that resulted in the salvation of others even after her disappearance, as you will see shortly. God's grace was at work in our family, preparing us for this trial, long before it happened. Within the year before Bambi disappeared, I finally submitted to missions. Bambi was led to Christ by another sister, Vicki and her husband, Mike. My older brother and his wife rededicated their lives and their daughter was saved. All the other adults in our family were saved,,, or so we thought. It is here that I must digress a bit. In October, 1986, I left Memphis for a new Mission Service Corps assignment to Cincinnati, Ohio. On the way out of town, I stopped off to see my sister, Vicki, and new nephew, Michael, one last time. Vicki and I discussed a mutual concern that our father may not be saved. We believed, however, that the Holy Spirit was doing His convicting work in Dad's life. Recently retired, Dad began looking up old friends who had also retired, so that he could renew fellowship with them. Some of them invited him to VFW meetings and similar functions. While there was nothing wrong with these activities, we knew that Daddy was really searching for satisfying fellowship, and we knew that Christian fellowship was the only kind that could fill that deep need. So, before I left for Cincinnati, Vicki and I prayed that God would do "whatever was necessary" to bring Dad "into the fellowship of believers." Now, please understand... I do not believe that what happened just a week later was God punishing anyone for being out of fellowship. Yes, God does discipline His own, but Dad was not one of God's own, yet. You will see that God had a greater purpose for this trial. I left that day for Cincinnati and one week later I received a phone call, telling me that my sister, Bambi was missing. My immediate reaction, naturally, was to turn around and head straight down to Leesville, LA, where Bambi lived with my brother, Roddy. I desperately needed to be with my family and join in the search. But my family, especially my father insisted that I stay in Cincinnati because they knew it was God's will for me to be there. I literally ached to join my family, but instead, a cousin who is a bi-vocational evangelist in Cincinnati was God's comfort to me at that time. Major car trouble and later a car accident and injury deterred me every time I was tempted to give up and join my family. God literally had to break my car and hinder my body to keep me there as He taught me to submit patiently to His purpose. Frankly, I know now that I probably would not have prayed as hard if I had not been hindered from going down there to be in the middle of all the activity. I did not get to join my family for almost two months. I tell you all this because it really was not my strength of character or dedication that kept me there. It was at the insistence of my Dad, who always taught us to keep our commitments “even if it cost us time, money or inconvenience.” I talked to my family by phone several times a day. Dad told me that everyday, hundreds of Christians walked up to him in Leesville, many with Bible in hand, offering to pray for him and our family, or to assist in some way. Calls came from all across the country, offering prayer. 1,500 soldiers from Fort Polk volunteered to join the search. The Governor assigned an investigator to work on nothing but Bambi's case for almost 6 months. Churches down there organized 24 hour-a-day prayer vigils at their altars. Prayers were lifted up at Pastors' Conferences in Ohio, Louisiana and Tennessee and through the North American Mission Board Intercessory Prayer Line network. Over and over Dad said to me, "Deb, I just cannot believe there are so many Christians out there, total strangers, reaching out to me. I have never in my life dreamed that such "FELLOWSHIP" existed" (the very thing Vicki and I had prayed for him to experience.) It amazed him that such a network could spring up, literally overnight. What he did not realize was that God already had His network in place, always ready to spring into action. Dad read and re-read the study notes in Bambi's Bible. In fact, I am told that he would not let her Bible out of his sight. He held onto it and carried it with him everywhere. It became his treasure. He searched it for comfort, because it represented a link with Bambi. But the more he read, the more it became his link with Heaven. Dad “went forward” at a revival in 1956 and even got baptized. But during this ordeal, he realized he had not experienced saving grace back then. He saw, in other members of the family, a dependence on a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ, which gave them an ability to endure. He knew once and for all he did not have that relationship and he knew he must have it to survive this ordeal. So, one night during that first week of Bambi's disappearance, Daddy dropped to his knees in front of his family, tears streaming down his face and committed his heart and life to Jesus Christ. It is important to note that he "committed" his life, in light of what he always taught us about keeping commitments. The next day, Dad called to tell me that, from now on, not only should we be praying for Bambi's safety and return...but that he was insisting we also pray for and forgive whoever was responsible for her disappearance. PAY ATTENTION! The day before, this man was promising that if anyone harmed any one of his six children and he ever got his hands on them, he would probably kill them. Now, this man was saying that if he ever found out who was responsible, he just wanted a chance to put his arms around them, tell them that he forgave them and loved them and that Jesus Christ loved them, too. The very first thing that the Holy Spirit did in this "new man" was replace bitterness and vengence to love for his unseen enemy. It is important to note that, because no human being can do that on his own. That is something that only God can do in a person's heart. After being out of church for almost 20 years, he and my mother found a church home. He offered to work in Vacation Bible School, memorizied entire chapters of scripture and dressed up in character, to recite the story about the life of Jacob to the children. (He identified with Jacob, who also had a child who was missing and presumed dead for decades.) Dad also assisted with the widow's ministry, and eventually was asked to serve as an usher. He and Mama served in the nursery. Dad began growing spiritually by leaps and bounds, right before the eyes of his family. My mother, faithful and gracious lady that she is, patiently waited on him to take up his position as spiritual head of our family, and soon they were active in Sunday School and Body Life Fellowship. Mama says that one of the proudest days of her life was the first time Dad was asked to lead in prayer in Sunday School class. A small thing for some, but in her heart, she treasured hearing her husband pray out loud in public for the first time…with such humility and brokenness. When I first joined Mission Service Corps in 1985, my Dad thought it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard of. He was concerned for my safety and security and just could not approve or bless anything as radical as selling everything I owned and going off to a ghetto in Atlanta, working without pay and even paying my own expenses. But as he grew, he became one of my greatest encouragers and participated financially as well, even though he had spent a large portion of his retirement savings searching for Bambi. He even became involved in missions, himself, leading his Sunday School class to get involved in a project in an inner city church. He was also very supportive of the involvement of Vicki and her husband as they served on the missions committee at Bellevue Baptist and their ministry as foster parents with LIFE CHOICE. He became very verbal
about the basis of a church having all its own needs met is to be
actively involved in supporting missions…(Phil. 4:19.)
Dad's
refusal at that time o allow bitterness and un-forgiveness to take him
captive kept all of us from being defiled by bitterness and
un-forgiveness (Heb. 12:15). As a result, our
entire family was actually released to freely talk about, worship and
serve God in our homes and communities. I shudder, now, to think how
bitterness and un-forgiveness could have destroyed our family. We
began to see God's wisdom and grace in sparing us the gruesome
knowledge of what may have happened to Bambi's body.after seeing what
that family had to go through identifying the remains of their
daughter's body and still enduring a long delay before being allowed to
bury what remained so they could hold it for the investigation. Frankly... NO! But now, if we can praise God in the midst of this limbo anyway, and thank Him for what He is giving us instead…then an ever-increasing measure of His grace, comfort and presence…more of HIMSELF…fills that painful empty place in our hearts. God
has given me a fresh burden to begin praying again for those
responsible for Bambi's disappearance...AND to ask you to as well. - Copyright 1991. D.B. Harrell All rights reserved. STUDY / DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
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