Have you ever run a marathon? Numbers indicate that barely one percent of the population has attempted it, and many less have actually finished one. Yet, we are all endurance runners in the marathon of life.

When calamity slams into us along the way, as it did literally to Chris Gillespie, 52, we don’t usually respond by celebrating that God may be trying to get our attention. Yet, 24 years after an accident that nearly crippled him, Gillespie continues to celebrate the day God got his attention, altered his life and “made me who I am.”

Out of his trial he became the founder and executive director of TEAM 413 — GRACERUNNER Ministries.

A life-changing day

He begins the story with a wry chuckle, “I’m the only person you’ve ever met who’s been hit by a flying pingpong table.”

On April 30, 1986, Gillespie left work from his job as the head athletic trainer at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., a little earlier than usual. He looked forward to being able to take a long run and have time for reflection.

“Little did I know that, on this day, my life would be changed forever,” he said in his book, “GRACERUNNER.”

He’d taken a different course, but ran an unusually fast pace that day. Returning, he found himself running along a busy highway during rush hour. Gillespie was only a few hundred yards from the university’s entrance when he was suddenly struck from behind and propelled 30 feet. The unusual object that hit him like a missile turned out to be an unrestrained sheet of plywood — a pingpong table — whizzing off the back of a pickup truck.

“My sacrum (large bone at the base of the spine) had been crushed. I had lost nerves. I had significant muscle and other soft tissue damage,” he said. “I had tremendous swelling and eventually turned black and blue from the top of my shoulders to the bottom of my feet. This injury would affect me for the rest of my life. I was very fortunate to be alive.”

God challenged him by Gillespie’s own maxim: “Never allow your circumstances to dictate your character, but rather allow your character to show through in your circumstances so that you can be a better witness for our Savior, and so that God will be glorified in ALL things.”

God not only got his attention, but during his lengthy hospital stay and rehabilitation, He planted in Gillespie’s heart and mind the vision for a unique ministry of evangelism — a way to reach out with the love of Jesus Christ to marathon runners and others who are running to avoid the calamities of life overtaking them.

TEAM 413 is born

“We are all running from or to something,” Gillespie said. “We may be running from mid-life or to lose weight; we may be running from a bad relationship or to gain affirmation. People run from being minimized or discouraged, or they run to prove something.”

It was a strange vision for a ministry because of Gillespie’s medical diagnosis.

“I was told that I would be lucky to walk normally again, and running was most likely out of the question forever. In my wildest dreams, I could not envision running again,” he said.

But Gillespie dwelt on the verse that would come to embody the ministry of TEAM 413 — Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Now, he and his wife, Kiki, along with hundreds of other “team” members the world over, wear T-shirts with that verse emblazoned on the back as a testimony to God’s grace.

“It’s a unique opportunity to spread their faith in a nonthreatening way,” Gillespie said.

TEAM 413 has a presence at marathons around the country. They set up booths where they share compassion, encouragement and the Gospel with scores of people who stop by to ask about the shirts and why they are wearing them.

Gillespie, quoting another team member, said, “Let me tell you about my shirt; but more importantly, let me tell you about my heart.”

That’s what TEAM 413

members do; they share their hearts, their saving faith in Jesus Christ and try to encourage people running life’s marathon in any way they can. Gillespie thinks of it as paying forward what God has done for him on the cross and in allowing him to walk and even run again. Others he meets buy a shirt to wear or a copy of his book to share, and in that way, they pay their faith forward, too.

“God can use anything as a ministry that honors Him,” Gillespie said. “If God gives you a passion, He gives it to allow you to share it for His glory and not to hide it. If it’s a sport, music, art, whatever; he gave you that passion because he wanted you to share it. If you’re not using your passion to glorify Him, maybe you’re not doing what He commanded you to do to enhance His kingdom.”

Mark Knutson, race director for both the Fargo and Illinois marathons, said, “Chris Gillespie is doing what God has asked all of us to do — spread the Word using what gifts and talents we have. 

Every time he runs by someone while wearing a TEAM 413 shirt, he is solidifying his role as ‘God’s Personal Running Messenger,’ reminding us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”

Impacting lives

Gillespie said of the TEAM 413 ministry, “We don’t have any concept of the seeds that have truly been planted.”

But the stories of a faithfulharvest continue to come in.

One woman found courage in the shirt’s printed message to witness to her rebellious daughter. A few weeks later that young lady made a public profession of faith in Christ. Soon after, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and went home to meet the Lord at the age of 17. Her mother phoned Gillespie and said, “Whatever you do, please don’t stop! Please don’t stop!”

Another woman appeared at the TEAM 413 booth at the end of a marathon. “She wore that faraway look in her eyes,” Gillespie said in “GRACERUNNER.”

“From what I could gather from my brief encounter with her, she was homeless, she was cold and she was very lonely — a face in the crowd. 

She kept insisting that she’d run that marathon and wanted ‘one of those silver things’.”

Gillespie eventually realized that it wasn’t a medal the woman wanted but one of the Mylar blankets wrapped around the shoulders of each of the finishers. She wanted to be warm, and she wanted the chance to fit in. Gillespie wrapped his own Mylar blanket around her feeble shoulders. That day he was Jesus to her.

Dick Beardsley, president of the Dick Beardsley Foundation, is a longtime associate of Gillespie’s. He also wrote the foreward to “GRACERUNNER.” Gillespie knows Beardsley as an encourager and supporter of the ministry. Endurance athletes know him as a world- class marathoner and two-time Olympic qualifier who has held the Grandma’s Marathon course record since 1981. He’s seen TEAM 413 in action.

“At just about any running event I’ve been to, I see people wearing the TEAM 413 T-shirts,” Beardsley said. “Chris has a great message,”

He said Gillespie and his wife, Kiki, are passionate about the ministry.

“I saw them at an event in Springfield, Mo.,” Beardsley said. “It’s hot out, and they’re at it all daylong, telling people about the mission. He tries to go to as many events as he can.”

Gillespie still suffers both from the long-term effects of his accident and from another health condition called dysautonomia, which he said, ironically, is relieved by running. Some people wonder if he wishes he could go back and take away the moment he was struck by the pingpong table.

“I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s made me who I am in so many ways. (God) was preparing me to understand pain and preparing me for my ministry,” he said.

“Christians often say that God won’t place more on you than you can handle, but I can’t find that in the Bible. There are things you can’t get through if you don’t use His strength to get through them. 

There’s no possible way you can get through those calamities. You can’t handle them until you depend on God and you have that person who is there with you to help you, to lift you up.”

TEAM 413 offers a printed copy of a prayer that encourages those struggling with life’s trials to keep moving forward, to avoid focusing on the calamities of life, to finish strong. The final lines of the prayer conclude, “One more breath, one more step, one more mile, Finish Line! I can do all things through YOU who strengthens me.”

Teenage rockers Arise The Dawn blaze their own trail in the Duluth-Superior Christian rock scene with fast riffs, thundering drums, a pounding bass and scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs vocals

— Russ Ballard

Before Beau Musch became the lead singer of the Christian rock band Arise The Dawn, he had to prove he could scream.

The band based out of Mission Covenant Church in Poplar, Wis., had its nucleus in place, but one piece was missing from the group’s brand of intense, high-energy heavy metal — a singer who possessed a guttural growl that could scare off a pack of wolves.

“Me, Brock (Larson), Jared (Gehl) and Jake (Wynn) were playing together,” said Nathan Nelson, the group’s drummer, “and then one day at youth group someone said that Beau could scream. And we asked him to show us, and he got up on stage and went (insert your own howl here). He had no fear, so we were like, ‘You need to be in the band.’”

Now, for about the past year and a half, Arise The Dawn has performed incendiary sets with songs like “Reasons,” “Emergency Appendectomy,” “Whatever Happened to Pluto?” and “I hAte gRamEr the MostesT” to metal fans around northwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota. They also spread their sound to the Twin Cities recently by advancing through a few rounds of the Club 3 Degrees Battle of the Bands.

But understand, Arise The Dawn isn’t your father’s Christian rock band. Not even close. Think Metallica on steroids following an old- fashioned Gospel revival meeting.

Arise The Dawn’s sound is a mixture of metal, screamo, rock and “a tinge of punk.”

“It’s kind of funny because we all have different styles that we like and we all kind of bring that to the table,” Nelson said. “It’s kind of a mixture of all of our favorite styles of music.”

Jake Wynn, 16, shreds the air around him with his lightning quick riffs on lead guitar; Nate Nelson, 18, provides plenty of thunder on the drums; Jared Gehl, 18, gives each song a firm foundation with his pounding five-string bass; and Brock Larson, 18, is the group’s jack- of-all-trades on rhythm guitar and keyboards. Then there’s Beau Musch, 18, filling arenas with his primordial yowls and playing rhythm guitar for good measure.

But aside from dishing out heavy doses of speaker-melting metal, Arise The Dawn never forgets their mission — to bring Christian-inspired music to the masses. Each of their shows contains a segment they call a “talk” — where the name of God is proclaimed to the crowd.

During a recent three-song set played at a battle of the bands in Duluth, Minn., Beau Musch shelved his howl momentarily to tell the audience what Arise The Dawn is all about.

“We believe in God, so we try to put something positive into our lyrics,” he told them. “We want there to be a little more meaning behind our songs. We want them to be able to encourage you.”

The crowd loved it.

“Usually we get a very positive response,” Musch said. “I’m not scared of a negative response — if it happens, it happens. It just feels good to speak out when everybody is listening to me. You could have a bad reaction if you get too preachy. But you don’t want to cut God out it because that’s our complete goal with this band. You try to throw something in there so that they definitely hear what we’re about.”

“One of the hardest things that we’ve had is trying to come up with talks — how to word it in a way that’s not going to offend people or turn them away,” Nelson said.

But before the first chord roars out of their speakers, they make sure to talk to God.

“We always start our recording sessions or concerts with prayer,” Gehl said.

Nelson added that prayer helps the band “get our mind focused on what it’s really about and why we’re here.”

Playing Christian music in a genre generally known for spiritual darkness, Arise The Dawn hopes their audiences see their spiritual light.

“As a metal band, we can show that you don’t have to be all messed up on drugs, sex and stuff,” Gehl said.

And to help ensure they are each living lives acceptable to Jesus Christ, the band members said they have each other as accountability partners.

Their mentor, Aaron Armstrong, CEO and owner of DeepWater Music, has enjoyed helping hone their musical gifts and recording tracks for an upcoming CD.

“Working with Arise The Dawn — it’s a total trip,” Armstrong wrote by e-mail. “We’ve spent many nights in the studio past 12:00 working on their songs, their sound and their team.

“I absolutely love these guys like a dad. I taught them privately from up to one-four years, and I’ve worked with them as their producer for about 17 months. I’m so proud of these guys, not only for their music, but for their desire to serve Christ in their own unique way. I think, for followers of Jesus, they help us ask the question, ‘What unique things in me would God like to use?’”

And if using those gifts includes screaming out song lyrics and cranking all their amps full tilt, then the members of Arise The Dawn are grateful and honored to serve Jesus as a metal band.

“The Bible says to make a joyful noise,” Wynn said.

Arise The Dawn makes a joyful noise indeed.

Editor’s note: To find out more about Arise The Dawn, learn of upcoming shows or to listen to their songs, go to www.myspace.com/xarisexthexdawnx 

In western Kenya a boy is running barefoot on the Uasin Gishu plateau.

He comes from a hard-working farming community called the Kalenjin whose high-altitude home (between 5,000-10,000 feet above sea level) and lengthy foot travel give the people strong lungs and high endurance. It has produced many legendary runners. Kids make a seven-kilometer trip to and from school each day. They have to run fast or they will be late.

This was the life of Sammy Malakwen as a boy. Growing up with his grandparents and attending a catholic school is where his running and faith began.

“In high school I saw a newspaper (article) of someone I knew who had broken a world record, and I said, ‘I think I can do this time and prosper in a running career,” Malakwen said.

His hilly home is reflected in his favorite Bible verse – Psalm 121:1-2. “I lift my eyes unto the hills -- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth.”

Now an established competitor among the elite running community, Malakwen stays at the house of Steve and Kim Salowitz in Two Harbors, Minn., while preparing for Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth (June 19).

In a sport where successful runners often glorify themselves, Malakwen gives the glory to God. He was baptized at a young age and continued to read his Bible while in school. Malakwen said his faith is key to remaining free of injuries and opening the way for opportunities.

“I train six days a week -- twice each day -- and rest on Sunday. It is a special day and I go to church,” Malakwen said.

Christianity is also growing in Africa.

“One of the Kenyan runners (Henery Wanyoike) became blind as a teenager and holds the world record for blind marathon runners,” said Steve Salowitz, project funding coordinator for Wycliffe Bible Translators. “He runs so fast as a marathoner he has to have several escorts that are elite runners throughout the race. He also has a ministry where he raises money for Christian charities.”

At home, there is a two-mile trek to get water. He has a wife, three children and a farm where he raises passion fruit beans and maize. Last year, he lost his fruit crop due to drought.

When Malakwen made his Grandma’s Marathon debut in 2007, he took a loan to pay for his trip to Duluth. He arrived the day of the race, and running on less than three hours of sleep he was in fourth place with two and a half miles left in the race. He faded at the end, placing 32nd. But if he returned to Kenya with no prize money, he faced rising interest rates for his loan and possible jail time for failure to pay it back.

“I kept saying to myself, ‘I don’t want to be lost in America, I don’t want to be lost in America,’” he said.

“When I found out he was here for two months, I said, ‘Come on, let’s sit down, what’s going on, tell me your story,’” Salowitz said. “When we realized what was going on and knew Sam was a Christian, we said, ‘Just stay here with us, we’ll think of things and pray about it.’ That’s what we did.”

Malakwen joined the Salowitzs at prayer breakfast and church at Lakeview Covenant in Two Harbors, and they were able to come up with the exact funds he needed to go home. When he returned, he got a lawyer and was able to reduce the amount he owed.

“I think Sammy had a lot of faith lessons that first summer,” Salowitz said. “In church after each sermon, Sammy would turn to me and say, ‘What did you tell the pastor about me?’ ‘Nothing,’ I’d say, ‘what do you mean?’ ‘(Malakwen said) everything he said was about me.’” 

Shortly after arriving in America this year, Malakwen was the runner-up in the Green Bay Marathon in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 25 seconds. The next weekend he competed in the Fargo Half-Marathon and beat his course record to take first in 1:04:27. Last year he competed in the Get in Gear 10K in Minneapolis, Dam to Dam 20K in Des Moines, Iowa, and Back in Shape 5K in Bloomington, Minn. His goal for Grandma’s this year is to finish in the top six.

“The thing with Sam is he never gives up. I ran it in 2005 in five hours and saw a Kenyan sitting on the side of the road. A lot of them drop, but Sam’s not like that,” Salowitz said. 

Malakwen likens his faith to the training, discipline and dedication needed for running. He says sitting down with his family to share a Bible passage takes just as much dedication.

“Wherever I go, I talk to people, uplift the youth and share my faith. I take my Bible everywhere I go,” Malakwen said.