Photo courtesy of the Blue Ridge School

I don’t know if you have as much trouble as I do when a young person passes away suddenly, either from an accident or illness or, worse yet, senseless violence. Maybe it’s because I taught high school for long, or maybe it’s because we had children of our own or maybe it’s just a human reaction to the suffering causes by such losses. I have a hard time with it.

Such is the case with the brutal murder of 21-year-old Andrew Pochter, who was stabbed in Alexandria, Egypt, while he was witnessing the riots there and taking video of them on his cell phone. He was mistaken for a protester and died soon after in a military hospital.

Young Andrew was there teaching English to children and improving his Arabic. He was raised in a combination Christian/Jewish household and had come to embrace the Jewish aspect of his life recently. Here’s a link to a story about his faith journey: http://forward.com/articles/179578/slain-college-student-andrew-pochter-driven-by-jew/

And here’s one about his murder in general: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/30/us/egypt-pochter-profile

The death of a young person for any reason or by any cause is tragic: it is worse when the young person is young, idealistic, and trying to do some good and help others. I pray comfort for Andrew’s friends and family, and that the Great Comforter will embrace him and say, “Well done, you good and faithful servant.”