Sasha Marie Krause went alone to church on Saturday, January 18. It was just a quick trip for some Sunday School materials. She needed them to teach the preschool class the next day at her congregation’s outreach in Colorado.
Unscheduled in the grand scheme of life, that short drive to church was routine in that it was nothing special. She arrived safely…and vanished, no more to be seen in this life by family and friends. But someone else was with her. Someone not yet identified. Someone who took her or her lifeless body to Arizona.
On Friday (February 28) her body completed its earthly travels, this time in Texas to its burial.
But Sasha is elsewhere. With Someone else who had been with her to the end of her life here. To those who wonder where God was in all this…there’s your answer.
As I posted on Facebook on February 22:
With her.
I’ve no doubt.
Why did He allow this?
I do not know.
And that’s OK.
He is sovereign, all-wise, loving, and absolutely trustworthy.
May He continue comforting Sasha’s family, friends, and fellow believers.
We do not know what happened after she arrived at her congregation’s meetinghouse. We do not know if she was expecting death by the time it arrived, or if it took her by surprise. We do not know if her walk through the valley of the shadow of death was long and rigorous, or swift and easy. But we do know with full assurance of faith that she was not alone. We praise the Good Shepherd for bearing and sustaining her through that journey. As she wrote ten years ago in her poem “I Do Not Walk Alone”…
I shall not walk alone.
Now her vacated body lies in Texas, awaiting a much-needed transformation on a special day yet over the horizon. And then Sasha will inhabit it again. (And now I’m staggering in theological and eschatological territory difficult to understand, much less verbalize, so I’ll stop that train of thought!)
I never met Sasha or otherwise interacted with her. However, I have had a years-long relationship with Lamp and Light Publishers, so the shocking events involving one of their employees has been of particular interest to me. Two days or so before the funeral, I finally decided it was time to reach out to one of my contacts there to ask some questions about Sasha. (I knew better than to trust everything I was reading online.)
Meet Sasha, as I learned to know her a tiny bit from her coworker as well as from her obituary:
- She would have been 28 years old next month.
- Her parents became Mennonites when she was 11 years old.
- She became a Christian sometime after that, still at a relatively early age.
- She wrote poems, some of which were set to music.
- She taught six years at her church’s school in Texas, but did not teach school at Farmington.
- She worked at Lamp and Light Publishers in New Mexico for the last year and a half of her life.
- Talented with languages, she served in their Spanish, French, and English correspondence course ministry.
- She was in the process of learning French.
- She was a member of Farmington Mennonite Church for a few months.
For me, the most impressive statement in Sasha Krause’s obituary is the very last one: “Let love and forgiveness prevail!”
I referenced one of her poems above. Read it in the image below. (I regret not being able to give credit to its creator.)
According to at least one estimate, 650-700 people attended Sasha’s funeral. One of the speakers at her funeral emphasized that we do not know the whole story. The many baseless rumors have been horrendous for the family, one of whom said, “It has been like adding murder on top of murder.”
On February 25, I posted this on Facebook:
May the perpetrator(s) be apprehended without further bloodshed. And may the perpetrator(s) come to full surrender to the Good Shepherd and join Sasha’s family of faith.
May God keep, bless, and direct the law enforcement folks working on this case.
Speaking of law enforcement:
Well, I close with another tidbit from her obituary: “Sasha Marie Krause…passed away on Saturday, January 18, 2020.” (Now don’t forget: beware of speculating and conjecturing and imagining and surmising and gossiping and rumor mongering.)
I Do Not Walk Alone
I joyful take the upward way,
And press on to that glorious day,
Yet loneliness asserts its sway—
Oh, must I walk alone?How rough and dangerous my street!
I’d love to walk with nimble feet,
But snares are laid with such deceit,
I cannot walk alone.In quietness God’s voice I hear,
“Art thou alone while I am near?
Oh, foolish child, shake off thy fear.”
I do not walk alone.When stress and fear shall take their toll,
When cruel tyrants grasp my soul,
When death and all its horrors roll,
I shall not walk alone.Sasha Krause, 2010
Some links in this post