Brittiney Bevin’s story leads
people to Christ
By Chris Birke
cbirke@secc.org
Brittiney Bevin wanted to be a missionary. She
was sure of it by age 15.
Her parents, Matt and Glenna, never doubted the
sincerity of her choice. They’d watched their brown-eyed daughter
earnestly seek God even as a young child. By age 7, Brittiney’s bubbly
personality, mixed with her dry sense of humor and innate sense of
compassion already had emerged.
"She loved Jesus more than anything,"
said Glenna who fondly remembers Brittiney reading her first Bible as a
second-grader.
It was near that same time that Brittiney
brought home her first child in need—a lonely girl she’d found at
the park on a rainy day whose mother was at work.
"God constantly led people to Brittiney
who needed her help," Glenna said. "People just gravitated
toward her."
And when Brittiney saw someone hurting, it was
like a reflex for her to open her arms and poise for a hug.
"Come to momma," she’d say through
a broad smile as she reached out to a friend who’d had a bad day.
"Her love language was hugs," Glenna
said. "She’d been like that since she was very young."
Sure, there were times, Glenna said, that
Brittiney got caught up in the things that most girls think
about—boys, appearance and crazy fingernail polish.
Matt stressed that, in many ways, Brittiney was
"a normal eye-rolling teenager."
"What was exciting to us was how God was
reaching out to a normal teenage girl to further his kingdom," he
said.
But nothing interfered with Brittiney’s close
walk with her Jesus.
"She read everything about Him that she
could get her hands on," Glenna said. And she grew to love Him even
more during a mission trip to India that she took with her father, Matt.
On that trip in January 2003, Brittiney served
widows and orphans, and she developed a desire to do more mission work.
"She spent most of her time there with
children," Matt said. "The poverty was unbelievable but
instead of turning her off, it confirmed the heart she had for
missions."
"After she came back from India she
didn’t even want go shopping anymore," Glenna said. "I’d
pick up a skirt at Ann Taylor, and Brittiney would say, ‘Do you
realize how many kids we could feed for the price of that
skirt?’"
She practiced what she preached.
After Brittiney opened her own bank account,
Glenna said her teenager wrote checks only to Compassion International
to help feed, clothe and educate Marco, the boy she sponsored through
the organization.
"She was well aware that small amounts of
money here could make a huge impact on people in Third World
countries," Glenna said.
The next summer, at age 17, Brittiney raised
enough money to fund her mission trip to Romania, where she again worked
with orphans.
She returned home right before her senior year
at Collegiate High School with a clear picture of where she wanted to go
in life: back to the mission field to lead others to Christ.
She was adamant that she’d do mission work
right after high school.
"She’d say to me, ‘Mom, what if I
spend four years in college, walk out the door and get hit by a bus?
What am I going to tell Jesus?’ So, we decided to let her postpone
college for a year and pursue mission work."
But a few months later, on Friday, Sept. 22,
2003—just weeks into her senior year—Brittiney was in a car accident
on Lexington Road near the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She
died at the scene.
"I don’t think we’ll ever get over
it," Glenna said. But even in the way she died, Brittiney’s
family saw God’s hand.
"I was so grateful when the doctor told me
she’d been killed instantly. She went to heaven in the blink of an
eye—with no pain," Glenna said. "And it was a blessing that
students at the Baptist seminary came out to the accident scene and
prayed."
In the almost three years since the accident,
Glenna said her family is "spiritually at peace."
"Unfortunately our human side will never
be OK with it. Brittiney was my best friend, and I miss her more with
each of her passing birthdays."
But, Glenna said, God has been
"awesome" throughout the devastating loss. "He has
continued to use Brittiney to bring people to Christ," she said,
citing Bob Russell’s last sermon as senior minister at Southeast in
which he used Brittiney and her grave site as a way to illustrate how
even death can lead others to Christ.
The grave site features a bronze statue of
Brittiney, leading a group of children to Jesus.
Brittiney wanted to be a missionary, and she
is.
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Tom and Marcey White