I heard about the [bombing](http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw114176_20050409.htm) in the Cairo bazaar last Thursday, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I figured that it was just one of those things that happens all too often over in the Middle East.

I download and listen to .mp3s of messages from [Mars Hill Bible Church](http://www.mhbcmi.org) pretty much every week. I really like the way the teaching pastor there, Rob Bell, digs into the historical background of the text. This week was different than normal, however. He started out talking about a tragedy that had turned there community upside down, and I was instantly curious about what he was talking about. Well, it turns out that the young man killed in the (apparently) suicide bombing in Cairo on April 7th was named Alex Mirandette, and he was from Mars Hill. Bell went on to tell the story of why Alex and his brother and their friends were there in Egypt, and I find it amazing. And I haven’t seen it reported anywhere else, so I’m going to relay it here, based on Rob Bell’s description.

Alex and his brother Erik were at the end of a trip across the entire length of Africa. According to Bell, Erik had decided to take a leave from the Air Force Academy and go live and work in north Africa working with a ‘global partner’ that Mars Hill has. He wanted to work with refugees and just help people who have nothing. He was driven by a desire to change the world, and wanted to act on it. A few months ago, he and his brother Alex decided that they were going to ride motorcycles from the tip of South Africa to Egypt, and stop at every partner that Mars Hill has on the continent. So they actually did it. They worked with AIDS children and they distributed medicine, and built things, and just volunteered and helped out in any way they could. They made it to Cairo, met up with some friends, and went to a bazaar.

I honestly ask myself when I read this type of thing, why, why, why, why? When someone is walking in the footsteps of Jesus, and doing what it is that they are made to do, why does this happen? I’ve always just kind of figured that God would want to look out for people who were really striving to put him completely first in their lives. Especially from random violence. I mean, Jim Elliot going to the most murderous tribe on earth is in a different category some how. But my faith demands of me that I believe that despite how bad it looks, and despite how senseless the death seems, there is a God and he grieves with the Mirandette family and their community.