![\"Jeremy\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/hh\/t5\/hht5PqNJ3C6u8pzA6Q-ydA\/Jeremy-football.jpg\" "\\"Jeremy\\"")
By Stan Friedman<\/p>\nBy Stan Friedman<\/p>\n
LAFAYETTE, IN (August 13) \u2013 In December 1998, a late-night automobile accident took the life of Jeremy Doyle, a high school senior from the Evangelical Covenant Church of Lafayette, Indiana. His family and community poured out tears. But before too long, his death would begin to transforms lives\u2014first at home and later in a small village in Haiti. Earlier this year, Stan Friedman traveled to Lafayette to talk with Jeremy\u2019s family and church about his death and how they found new life in the nine years since. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This is the first of a four part series. <\/em><\/p>\n Jeremy Doyle had it all. At six-foot five, he was an All-State defensive at McCutcheon High School and had dreams of playing Division I football, fueled by the college coaches calling to recruit him. He was the starting center on the school\u2019s basketball team. Beloved by his classmates for his goofy sense of humor, and respected for his Christian beliefs, he had been named homecoming king. It seems like everyone knew and loved Jeremy.<\/p>\n Shortly before midnight on December 11, 1998, Jeremy left Pizza King, where he had stopped with friends following a basketball game. Less than a mile down the road, a pickup truck, driven by a teenager who had fallen asleep at the wheel, crossed the center line of County Road 350 S. and slammed head-on into Jeremy\u2019s 1989 Honda Accord.<\/p>\n A little while later, Sandy and Richard Doyle, Jeremy\u2019s parents, heard a knock on their front door. When they opened it, they found the chief of the Lafayette Fire Department standing there. A colleague of Richards\u2019s, he told them that their son had been seriously injured and was at the hospital.<\/p>\n When they arrived at the hospital, Sandy saw what seemed like a hopeful sign. There was no equipment hooked up to her son as he lay on the steel table in the emergency room. Then she heard her husband, who had been talking with a crying sheriff\u2019s deputy, begin to scream. Their son was gone.<\/p>\n As news of Jeremy\u2019s death quickly spread through the community, calls from students flooded the local radio station with special requests in his honor. Although the radio station normally didn\u2019t take requests, the disc jockey played them through the night.<\/p>\n Preparations began quickly for the funeral.\u00a0 \u201cWe knew the viewing and the funeral would be huge, but we had not idea how huge,\u201d recalls John Martz, who was the Doyle\u2019s pastor at the time.<\/p>\n FORGIVENESS OFFERED<\/p>\n Recalling that moment, when this young man met Jeremy\u2019s parents, still brings tears to Martz\u2019s eyes. Martz was standing in the church sanctuary with Sandy and making preparations for the viewing when the young driver walked in.<\/p>\n \u201cThis great big young man who must have been six feet, five inches tall, was standing in the doorway,\u201d he says. \u201cSandy made a beeline straight for him. His shoulders rounded and his head went down. He was really frightened of what she might say or what she was going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n What she did surprised even Martz. She cupped the boy\u2019s face in her hands, and told him, \u201cWe want you to know that we love you, and Jeremy would be upset if he knew you were carrying this awful burden forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe gave this young man his life back with those words,\u201d Martz recalls. \u201cI rarely have seen grace so manifested.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandy says she realized that this boy and his family had suffered terribly as a result of the accident. \u201cI think it was more overwhelming for them than it was for us in some respects,\u201d she says. \u201cI just feel like God lifted any harboring of ill feeling. I never felt like seeking revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n NEW LIFE FOUND AT FUNERAL<\/p>\n Both city high schools released their students to attend the funeral, which was the largest ever in Tippecanoe County, officials later said. Six hundred people crammed into the church sanctuary. Across the parking lot, roughly 800 attendees packed the church\u2019s Family Life Center. They watched the service on closed-circuit television the church had rushed to install with the help of Purdue University.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sea of kids was phenomenal,\u201d Sandy says. Some were athletes from across Indiana who had played against Matt and wanted to say goodbye. Uniformed police and firefighters lined the walls of the sanctuary.<\/p>\n Following Martz\u2019s sermon, youth pastor Jon Black delivered a eulogy. At the Doyles\u2019 request, he asked people to consider their own relationship with Jesus. He followed by asking everyone to close their eyes and raise their hands if they wanted to renew or begin that relationship with Jesus Christ. Across the sanctuary and in the gym, the arms of more than 300 people went up. Youth pastors who had been invited from local churches counseled some of the students.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew right then that God was moving,\u201d says Richard.<\/p>\n After the service, Jeremy\u2019s body was taken to the cemetery, followed by a funeral procession that stretched 10 miles. The last car arrived at the cemetery an hour after the first vehicle.<\/p>\n A month later, the Doyles worked with the church to sponsor a \u201cFifth Quarter\u201d at Jeremy\u2019s high school. Jeremy Camp, now one of the country\u2019s top Christian recording artists, gave his testimony at the end of the evening. Camp had not yet released his first album, but was a well-known former McCutcheon High School student and the son of a local pastor.<\/p>\n When Camp asked people to pray with him if they wanted to receive Christ, 150 responded.<\/p>\n \u201cI was standing right behind Jeremy, and I thought he was being really bold,\u201d Black recalls. At the end of the night each student received a New Testament that included Jeremy Doyle\u2019s personal testimony of faith in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n PEOPLE AND CHURCH GROW<\/p>\n The Doyles wanted to make sure the students continued to be discipled, so they held a Sunday night Bible study in their home for three years, with attendance that ranged between 25 and 50 people.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years afterward, we would get families who visited the church because they had been at the funeral,\u201d Martz says. \u201cKids went home to their parents and told them, \u2018We don\u2019t go to church, but we have to get this faith thing figured out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, the church began to grow one family at a time, going from 650 to more than 1,000, Many of those families first visited the church at Jeremy\u2019s funeral. The church has had to double the size of the Life Center. The expansion included a coffee caf\u00e9 named the \u201cHuddle,\u201d because it was a football term symbolic of coming together.<\/p>\n Richard remembers standing outside the building during construction and Martz asking him, \u201cYou do know this is all because of Jeremy?\u201d<\/p>\n At first, Richard didn\u2019t understand. Then Martz started naming families who had come to the church because of Jeremy. \u201cYou don\u2019t realize what is happening at the time,\u201d Richard says.<\/p>\n “Losing Jeremy\u2018That Was God Preparing Us for the Girls\u2019”<\/p>\n “Lafayette Church \u2018Adopts\u2019 Village”<\/p>\n “Lives intersect after tragedy”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n People still frequently approach the Doyles to tell them how their lives were changed at the funeral or Fifth Quarter. Earlier this year at a men\u2019s retreat, one attendee told Richard that his life had turned around at the funeral.<\/p>\n Jeremy was killed less than half a mile from church, and every Sunday the Doyle\u2019s drive past it on their way to worship. They give thanks for his life and the lives changed since that night in December.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/lX\/Hr\/lXHrnDrmDIejWyb7yAYIUg\/Jeremy-story.jpg\")
Three thousand people attended Jeremy\u2019s viewing. Among them was the driver of the truck that killed Jeremy. The boy was just a year older than Jeremy, and they had attended the same school. His father called Martz with a request: would the Doyle\u2019s allow his son to come pay his respects before the crowds arrived.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Four-part series<\/p>\n