Text Messaging

I carried on multiple conversations with multiple people over text messaging today. I even ordered a pizza and had it delivered to my house using a text message. Pretty impressive. I distinctly remember the first text message I ever received. It was November of 2001. I was student teaching a third grade class at Casey Elementary School. The students were taking a math test. The room was completely silent. It was impressive. Suddenly a series of beeps interrupted the quiet. It definitely came from the corner of the room where my bags were... but the storage closet was also in that corner so we didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later the beeps occured again. The kids were starting to get distracted. I went to the back of the room to explore. I couldn't find anything in the cabinet making a noise so we moved on. The kids finished the test. We went to lunch. No more noises. After the bell rang, I gathered my bags and headed for the car. I took my phone out and noticed a flashing envelope. I had no clue what it meant. I had never received a text message. I pushed a few buttons and found a note that read "HEY!!" Pushed a few more buttons and discovered the message was from Jonathan. A second text read "Have a great day!" Also from Jonathan. I think it took me several hours to figure out how to respond. :)

Phone Twins

I am sure that most of you remember this phone. Jonathan bought it shortly after moving to California. I inherited it when I came back from Tanzania. Apparently when Jonathan purchased this phone, it was the hot new thing and certain to be quite popular. Unfortunately I think people couldn't get used to the circular dialing thing. When I took it into the Cingular shop to get a new number, the guy was all "I have never seen this phone. It must be ancient." Ah well... I never saw another one like it until... LUXOR Egypt... Our tour guide, Ahmed, had a phone just like this... it was even blue... the same as Jonathan's. I couldn't believe it. Of course Ahmed's phone was all in Arabic... and he really didn't understand why I was so excited. But it was a fun little JD moment in Egypt. :)

Jeeping Around

Late one night Jonathan purchased a 1980s Jeep CJ outfitted with oversized tires, lift kit, headers, and a 350 Chevy V-8 engine. He was very excited about the possibilities for his new jeep. He later decided that he would never purchase a vehicle in the dark again without a thorough inspection because this one leaked oil like a sieve. In addition, he had to immediately begin making repairs and modifications. It seemed that the 350 V-8 was a tad large for the jeep and some of the motor mounts would break whenever he revved the engine. Nevertheless, he had a great time driving his jeep, mud riding, jumping over logs, and evading the occasional law enforcement officer who happened down the Natchez Trace.

One Wednesday afternoon just before IMPACT began, Jonathan ran into the Christian Life Center looking very distressed. He shared that his jeep's drive shaft had broken and had fallen out onto the street as he was making his way to church. He had picked up the drive shaft but was forced to leave his jeep on the street about a mile away. We drove him back and, sure enough, his jeep was abandoned in the center turn lane of Old Canton Road. We informed him that he could still drive his jeep (with the front wheels) by shifting the transmission to 4-wheel drive. He thought this was so cool that he drove his jeep in "front wheel drive" for the rest of the week before getting it fixed.

-Patrick Kyle

Contagious!!

My favorite memories of JD are when Jeremy lived with us those two summers, and the boys would all come over and just be boys! I have absolutely NEVER before or since seen anybody have as much fun in a swimming pool playing with a little basketball and poolside goal than JD, Jeremy, Steven Anderson, and Matt Ervin!! They'd stay out there for HOURS, "hooping" (pun intended) and hollering, and splashing and laughing! The laughing was the fun part! They'd just crack themselves up about something silly they'd do or say, and just start laughing until they hurt! We'd hear them all the way inside the kitchen and start laughing ourselves, like listening to one of those laugh boxes! Contagious!!

But then, he had his serious side... when he talked with you, he gave you his undivided attention. He loved with his whole heart! He never seemed to do anything half-heartedly, but did it because he had a deep passion for whatever it was he was doing at the time....whether it was spending a few moments talking with a Student Leader at church, talking with a younger member of the youth group, being a part of the Devore Family,....or simply splashing around a swimming pool with his best friends....Jonathan Devore was quite frankly very contagious, like his laughter! Oh , that there were more contagious Christians so passionate as JD! I can't wait to see him again, and see if I'm right about him splashing Jesus, or surfing on the crystal sea!! :)

-Peggy Brown

Would you like a napkin with that ice cream?

Jonathan was three years older than me so I looked up to him and thought he was so cool. I can remember one time when we were really young and the family was having a get together (I'm sure for someone's birthday) picnic. It was time for dessert and Aunt Dottie had just given us some ice cream, and Jonathan started tearing up his napkin into small pieces. He asked me if I wanted to see something cool and he put a piece of napkin in his hand and ate it with his ice cream, (or so I thought.) He told me you couldn't taste it but it's what big kids did. So like any five year old, I started chowing down on paper napkins and vanilla ice cream thinking I was so cool and grown up, but when we were done with dessert and went to play, all the paper napkin pieces flew out of his pocket and I was yet another sucker to believe the words of Jonathan Devore. (Makes me think of Travis Lee and his bright colored blazer!)

Three years have flown by, but I can just imagine him in heaven muting the angels microphones while they are singing praises, and him and Jesus laughing at their expense!

Much Love to JD,
Katie Smith Arnold

Sunsets

When I think of “Jonathan stories” my mind is flooded with millions of stories. I can never settle on one that seems just right or that can begin to explain any part of who Jonathan is. Over the past three years the things that have blown me away is how much Jonathan was in the little, every day things of life. I knew how much Jonathan meant to me, but I don’t think I realized how much Jonathan was a part of me – a part of my every day life. Not long after Jonathan died, I was having lunch with a friend in downtown Jackson. We were sitting close to a window and were in the middle of a deep conversation. I was mid-sentence when through the window I saw a Red Bull truck, and I stopped immediately and just sat there. My friend told me that one day these small things would be what makes me smile in remembrance, but I’m not for sure I believed him. I now know he was right.

It’s the small things that bring the Jonathan stories, moments, and memories rushing through my mind. The small things like a new board game on the shelf at the store – a game that would be perfect for an all night gamefest, and a game at which Jonathan would obviously beat me. I almost always think of Jonathan when renting a movie. The obvious movies like The Ladies’ Man or Lock, Stock aren’t the ones that stop me in my tracks. However, movies like Ronin or What About Bob, or Mean Machine, or even the latest movie with lots of car chases and explosions are the ones that make me stop, smile, and maybe laugh out loud. When in the grocery store about my bi-monthly shopping for food I come across Tab or Fresca, I always think of those post-church, Sunday night parties at the Devore’s. Foods like meatloaf, crunchy romaine toss, and French bread pizzas have Jonathan attached to them in my mind. I never see a blue, Z71 drive down the road that I don’t listen for it to sound like JD’s truck or think of the times Jonathan would use the intercom to tell motorists to go faster or get out of his way. There are millions of these small things, and they are the things that I cherish most.

Of all the small things that remind me of Jonathan, one stands out as the biggest. Jonathan loved sunsets. He was borderline obsessed with sunsets. His ebay username even had the word sunset in it. For me, sunsets are the one thing that capture the most of who Jonathan was. As I think back, all of our serious, heart-to-heart conversations happened while watching the sunset. On the Reservoir watching the sunset after playing catch for an hour, we sat and talked about how he really felt about moving to California; we talked about life and dreams and what those meant to us. A year later after spending the day on a road trip for a shoot, we watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean from Ventura and realized that not much had changed in how we viewed life and dreams.

Jonathan often got frustrated about being in California, and he needed to be reminded of why he was there. No matter where Jonathan moved (and he moved tons in that year and a half), one of the first things he did was to find a place to watch the sunset. He couldn’t always find time to go and sit to watch the sunset, but he tried to at least three of four times a week. His place (which moved each time he did) was a place he could go and sit for an hour and forget about whatever was going on; it was a place where he could re-charge. Sometimes he would call while he sat and watched the sunset. He would try to describe it, but as often with God’s creation, words never were enough. He often talked about how the clouds made a difference in the colors and the beauty of the sunset. In a place that often seemed Godless to him, Jonathan could always see God in His sunsets. I think it served as a reminder that God hadn’t called Jonathan to California and just left him; God was still there with him.

I don’t get to see the sunset daily, or nearly enough as I would like. I often only get to see them when driving from Atlanta to Mississippi. But when I see the sunset, I’m reminded of all of who Jonathan is. Eudora Welty says, “The memory is a living thing – it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives – the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.” Sunsets have become one of my favorite things too because as I watch, with the help of my memory, if only for a moment Jonathan still lives.

--Elizabeth Crews

Excel Camp 2001

There are soooooooo many stories from Excel Camp. It's become Student Ministry lore at CH for those who were there. Excel Camp was the summer camp that we went to in Ducktown, TN (I think). Typically Jim Randall, Student Minister at the time, would take a pre-trip to scout out the location for summer camp. He sent a group in August. In August the camp was still being constructed, but hey, that was 10 months before we were to be there and the owners had ensured us that everything would be ready by the time we got there.

We arrived the following summer to a camp that was ..... less than complete. We arrived to Excel Camp believing that we had the camp to ourselves. By the end of the second day, we were there with two other youth groups, meaning there were approximately 350 people there sharing a men's and women's bathroom with 2 sinks, three toilets, and two shower stalls. The water pipes were exposed and broken meaning there was no drinkable water (it was dirty and gritty), there were no walls on some of the cabins where some of the girls were staying, and on and on and on.

The pavilion we were having worship in didn't have any walls either and it rained like we were in a tropical rain forest throughout the week. We were getting wet and our sound equipment was getting wet. After one day of a typical downpouring and drying off the sound equipment once again, I turned around and all of a sudden JD and Matt Ervin walked in with power tools that who knows where they got. Immediately they were climbing around the pavilion like a couple of monkeys (with Bryan Rose) attaching think plastic lining around all of the outer walls of the pavilion to provide some kind of shelter. I'll never forget seeing how JD sprang in to action (as he always did) and started addressing problems... and usually with a set of power tools and Matt Ervin. Excel Camp was one of the worst and best experiences of my life and JD was all up in the middle of it!

--Crull Chambless

Electricity... eeeeeeelectricity...

Back in 1998 (or so) the Colonial Heights Student ministry did a missions project one weekend. It was a local project and we ended up working with the Mississippi Family Council. We did everything from yard work, light demolition, painting, etc. At the MS Council office there were two long hallways that ran parallel to each other down the length of the building with a closet between them that was used for storage. The only way you could get around the office was to go to either end of the hallways (kind of made a racetrack around the office). The Executive Director for the MS Family Council wanted the storage closet removed to improve traffic flow. So, Jonathan and I started working on the "light demolition."

We removed the shelving, et al from the storage room and started demolishing the sheet rock between the hallways. About 45 minutes in to it, Jonathan and I had basically destroyed everything... except the electrical outlet box that was in the wall. We had a long metal 1" conduit with the junction box on the bottom. Our thought was that we would cut the power, clip the wires to the box, slide the conduit off, tie the remaining wires off with electrical tape or whatever, coil it up and stick it up on the ceiling, and voila! done!

So, we plugged in an electrical drill in to the outlet, pulled out our "pocket Booker" and had him start cutting breakers to find the right switch for our outlet.

"Ok Booker, start cutting the switches!" .... " I think that's it! Cut it back on one second and let's make sure! ... yeah! that's it. ok kill it!"

Jonathan, who I swear always had a set of tools with him wherever he goes, whipped out a set of wire snippers. I pulled the box back at a 45 degree angles, exposing the wires, and Jonathan went to snip and.... BOOM!!!!

There was a loud pop and flash. Jonathan was thrown back and the lights in the office went out.

So upon further inspection, we had killed the circuit to the 120 volt outlet, but there WAS A LIVE 240 in the junction box!!! Thankfully the snips JD was using were insulated and all we were left with was a good scare (and the hair on Jonathan's hand got singed off).

To this day, I don't mess with electricity.

-- Crull Chambless

The Truth of the Sharpie Legend

Well, I guess it’s time that the guilty must come forward. If you thought that JD carrying a Sharpie all the time was cool, I guess it was mostly my fault. If he ever ruined anything that belonged to you by writing on it, I deny all knowledge.

Some (many actually) years ago, Jim Randall came to my house for dinner one night, and during the course of our conversation he shared an idea he’d been working on. Jim said that he wanted to do a choir tour, but not a choir tour like most churches and youth groups do. He told me that he wanted it to be cool, not cheesy, and like nothing anyone else was doing. I told him that it would be easy. All you’d need is a sound system WAY bigger than was necessary, video projection, some intelligent lighting flashing all over the room, and a LOT of fog juice! Jim loved it!

At the time, I was working for a company doing concert audio for all types of acts and had traveled a great deal and met a lot of famous and interesting people. So, I started calling in favors, and before you knew it, we had all the stuff that we “needed.” Jim had another idea for the choir tour. He wanted to involve all the kids that didn’t really care about singing in the choir. So, he created the drama team, the set designers and of course, the technical crew. Although there were about 10 kids on the tech crew, the real protégés were, you guessed it, JD and Matt Ervin (Irvin? I can never remember). They thought what I did for a living was cool, and they enjoyed sitting and talking about the people I had worked with. They did work very hard, and they seemed to really enjoy learning all about how audio and lighting systems worked.

Anyway, amongst all this vast technical knowledge that they believed I was sharing with them, I taught them the 2 “Rules of the Road.” First, duct tape will fix anything, and if it doesn’t, it’s too broke to fix! Second, never get caught without a Sharpie. JD and Matt took Rule 1 to new heights. Some of the things they made work with a little duct tape and imagination would boggle the mind, and it was always fun to see their creations. Rule 2 is where I personally had the most fun. After a few days of asking to borrow their Sharpie (which they didn’t have), JD decided to never get caught Sharpie-less again. He began to carry one on him at all times. Therefore, it began to be my job to sneak into his stuff at night, or in the morning, and steal all his Sharpies. It was priceless! I’d get up early, steal his Sharpies, and then all day long I’d ask to borrow his. When he’d tell me that he couldn’t find it, I’d accuse him of slacking on the job, not listening to a thing I’d said, and any other lines I’d heard from my parents and bosses a million times. Finally, after a few days of the disappearing Sharpies, I got caught laughing as he frantically searched for his Sharpie that I’d asked to borrow. We all got a great laugh, and of course JD never minded being the focus of a friendly joke. Lord knows, he pulled enough of them on all of us! Anyway, after that I would periodically ask if he had a Sharpie, and I don’t remember a single time that I caught him without one.

The day we said “goodbye for now” to JD, I felt like it was only right that I leave a Sharpie for him to make up for all the ones I had “stolen” from him. I miss him, too.

--Kiley Ham

Weekend plans

Friends always do stuff on the weekends, it's just a given. There would be something to do, no calling to make plans or anything like that, just get together and stuff happens.

That made it awkward the first time JD calls on a Thursday and says "what you doin' this Saturday?" I was thinking, what do we always do?, is he joking?, is there something cool happening?... Which got me to the answer, "nothing" thinking that what would follow would be an invite to some adventure that would finally be planned out and not happen on the fly like normal. Then I found out what it was all about, "I'm going to mow the Logan's grass, do you want to help?" Now knowing what it was, I was trapped, I already said I wasn't doing anything, so I reluctantly said "sure." (mowing the Logan's grass is another story in itself.)

This would happen lots of times, helping people move, cleaning up things, taking clothes to Mexico, etc... It always found me (sadly) with the same reluctant response. I used to joke with him, when he would ask me what I was doing, I would say "who needs help now." Each time we would go help someone, it was definitely an adventure in itself (that's what you got when you were JD's friend), and way better than selfishly doing "nothing."

There's too many "morals to the story" to list. Each one are reasons to miss him, and reasons to be that kind of friend to someone else.

--Steven Anderson