{"id":3246,"date":"2013-11-17T21:45:52","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T04:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/?p=3246"},"modified":"2026-03-03T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:25:04","slug":"saved-for-a-purpose-11181999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2013\/11\/saved-for-a-purpose-11181999","title":{"rendered":"Saved for a purpose, 11\/18\/1999"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have said relatively little to anybody about my experience in the Bonfire collapse of 1999.\u00a0 It’s a sore topic, and there is little comprehension by most people, even Aggies who have graduated since 2003, \u00a0of just how big bonfire was both in size and importance to the Aggie Spirit.\u00a0 In many ways I’m glad that the topic rarely comes up.\u00a0 However, bonfire and the collapse of\u00a0bonfire both impacted my life substantially, and therefore I think its important to write something down about it.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/a>
Building unity, the hard way<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bonfire was an amazing tradition in which thousands of students donated countless hours, along with blood, sweat, and tears, to build a massive bonfire, requiring ~7,000 trees cut down by students with axes, and stacked into a 60 ft wedding cake structure.\u00a0 To most Aggies, bonfire represented our burning desire to beat the hell out of Texas University (t.u.).\u00a0 But to those of us who built bonfire, the burning of bonfire was just the bitter-sweet ending of a 2 month process of making friends, having fun, and upholding a 90 year Aggie tradition.<\/p>\n

\"Nates
This picture shows me and the area where I was working the night bonfire fell. Many people in this picture did not survive because bonfire fell mostly in the direction of the camera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, on Nov 18th, 1999, bonfire collapsed while students were stacking logs onto bonfire, my dorm was one of the crews working that night.\u00a0 I was working first stack swing (about 20 ft up) on the south side of bonfire, the direction that it fell.\u00a0 Typically I was a hard worker when it came to bonfire, taking few breaks and working full shifts.\u00a0 But bonfire is primarily built by freshmen.\u00a0 On this particular night, and no other time that I can recall, I decided I was working too hard for a junior.\u00a0 It was time to get out of my swing and enjoy some hot chocolate with friends around one of the perimeter poles.\u00a0 Literally moments after I got down off the stack of 5000 logs, Bonfire collapsed killing 12 and injuring 27.\u00a0 I saw the entire thing happen from close distance.\u00a0 I had not yet joined my friends or made it to the refreshments.\u00a0 I ran back to where I was, looking for people from my crew.\u00a0 I was immediately met\u00a0by a hysterical female friend.\u00a0 I moved her to the perimeter and went further in.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what I expected to do or see, I thought I was going to help someone.\u00a0 But very quickly my eyes saw a couple of bodies that were contorted in unnatural ways.\u00a0 Immediately my eyes averted.\u00a0 I tried to move in, intending to pray with them, if they were still alive, wanting to let them know that Jesus loved them.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t move.\u00a0 I could move parallel to the stack just fine, but I couldn\u2019t move towards the stack.\u00a0 I made myself look back and I saw a person stuck in the stack between two large logs.\u00a0 He was alive, go to him, help him, I thought to myself.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t move.\u00a0 I decided that if I can\u2019t help these people I should at least get back to my friends.\u00a0 Let them know I\u2019m okay, and see if I can do anything.\u00a0 I found a huddle of strangers praying, awesome, I was glad to pray with them.\u00a0 I was extremely proud of our crew chiefs.\u00a0 Just sophomores, but they followed the instructions handed down by the senior redpots and organized people, called in for help, assigned jobs, figured out who is missing, and eventually identified the dead.\u00a0 Wow, they have my respect and I pray that this experience didn\u2019t scar them for life.<\/p>\n

Two ways that I responded to this experience that I didn\u2019t expect:\u00a0 1)\u00a0 I made bad jokes, distasteful jokes even, and I\u2019m never the joker.\u00a0 I guess I wanted to lighten the mood or distract myself.\u00a0 The sound of my laugh was hollow and unanswered.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t happy with the way I responded.\u00a0 2)\u00a0 I developed a twitch in one lower eye-lid.\u00a0 For a couple of weeks, all the way through Thanksgiving, my eye twitched every few seconds.\u00a0 I was glad when it faded away, it was no longer a reminder.<\/p>\n

The thing that I came away with, the thing that I can\u2019t escape is that God saved me for a purpose.\u00a0 Some might call it survivor\u2019s guilt, but I have no guilt about surviving.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I survived obviously, but after this happened I felt very strongly that it was God (or my guardian angel) that called me down out of that swing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think\u00a0I\u2019ve ever left a swing during a shift before, it wasn\u2019t like me.\u00a0 And yet, God considered me so important that he allowed me to walk away from this incident without a scratch.\u00a0 Considering 39 of the 58 people working on the stack were either killed or injured, I\u2019d say I was pretty lucky.\u00a0 Can I ever do enough to repay God?\u00a0 No, of course not.\u00a0 That\u2019s the definition of grace vs. works.\u00a0 I just happen to have had it played out in my physical life as well as my spiritual life.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t completely get past the question: am I doing enough to justify the life he\u2019s given me?\u00a0 Should I be doing more?\u00a0 Has God saved me for an even greater purpose?\u00a0 14 years later, God has given me\u00a0a great deal of\u00a0peace on this topic by revealing to me one thing:\u00a0 God doesn’t save us to put us in servitude.\u00a0 God saves us to put us in right relationship with him.\u00a0 He desires no less and expects no more from any of his children, regardless of what circumstances he’s saved them from.\u00a0\u00a0John 8:36:\u00a0“So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.”\u00a0 Thank you God for setting me free.<\/p>\n

My prayers\u00a0for\u00a0the individuals\u00a0and families who were permanently affected by this tragedy.\u00a0 I\u00a0hope that you\u00a0know the love God has for you, and that any lingering grief would be replaced by supernatural joy and fond memories.<\/p>\n

Gig’em Aggies,<\/p>\n

Nate Moehring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have said relatively little to anybody about my experience in the Bonfire collapse of 1999.\u00a0 It’s a sore topic, and there is little comprehension by most people, even Aggies who have graduated since 2003, \u00a0of just how big bonfire was both in size and importance to the Aggie Spirit.\u00a0 In many ways I’m glad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-nate-2","wpcat-9-id","wpcat-212-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-Qm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23104,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/bonfire","url_meta":{"origin":3246,"position":0},"title":"Bonfire","author":"Becca","date":"July 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"It's about to go down. 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