Kailey Massey

After junior Kailey Massey died in a car accident on her way back to Harding for the spring semester, students found ways to honor her memory and help comfort her close friends and family.

Jeremy Daggett, field director for the Harding in Zambia group Massey was in, accompanied members of the group to Texas to attend Massey’s funeral last week. Daggett said the entire HIZ 2012 group except one student, who was out of town, made the trip.

“We didn’t expect to be able to say much when we were there,” Daggett said. “Words aren’t enough with this sort of tragedy. The group sang, and admirably let God work through them in that way. We also hoped that by our very presence God would somehow reach and comfort Kailey’s family. There’s something about human presence, the image of God encountering the image of God, that allows us somehow to be conduits of God’s presence. That was our prayer while there, not that we would be able to say anything or do anything ourselves, but that God would convey his presence in a very tangible way through us.”

Massey’s family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to The Haven, an orphanage in Zambia that Massey worked with while she was there.

In the days following her death, Harding hosted two events in Massey’s honor: a student-led candlelight vigil on Monday, Jan. 13 and a chapel memorial service on Wednesday, Jan. 15. Additionally, Massey’s social club, Delta Nu, and her Harding in Zambia group both gathered to pray, sing, remember and grieve.

“She was your ideal Harding student,” junior Colleen Crowder, one of Massey’s club sisters, said. “If you could go through your Harding experience without ever an unkind word being spoken about you, that says a lot about your character.”

Lauren Bump

Friends and family remembered PA graduate student Lauren Bump through a candlelight memorial and two memorial runs after she was stabbed to death on New Year’s Eve.

Bump was part of a class of only 35 PA students, creating a tight-knit group, according to PA program director Michael Murphy. About half of those students attended Bump’s Texas funeral where hundreds of pink balloons were released in her memory.

Since one of Bump’s passions was running, she was also remembered with a silent run through the park where she was killed and another memorial run held at a nearby park.

Once students returned to school for the semester, they held a candlelight vigil to honor Bump. During this vigil, Bump’s friends highlighted her mission trip to Guatemala in a slideshow. According to Murphy, Bump was someone who strived to “live a Christ-centered life.”

On Jan. 4, Christian Bautista was arrested and charged with Bump’s murder and is being held on $200,000 bond.