Tribute To Steve

A Tribute to Steve Andrews As delivered by Lance Carr at Steve’s Memorial Service: 6 July 2009 Orson Scott Card is the author of a science fiction series about Ender Wiggin, a young boy who is trained to lead a squadron of space ships by playing a video game in order to ultimately lead the armies of earth in a space war to save the planet. Steve loved these books. One of the books in the Ender Series is called, “Speaker for the Dead”. Ender Wiggin becomes the speaker for the dead; a man who tells the truth about people; both the good things and the bad things, at their funerals. Now I am no speaker for the dead, but I believe that Steve would be pleased that the truth about him was told at this Memorial Service and I believe it has. I’m here to speak as Steve’s friend. I met Steve at UCT in 1989. It’s been a 20 year friendship. We were the odd couple initially. I enjoyed rugby and was in the residence down-down team. Steve enjoyed clowning and holding tea parties in obscure locations like the fountains in Adderley Street. But we connected on other levels. I loved his passion for the Lord, the way he was outraged by injustice and his love of the Blues – on these things we connected. Our friendship strengthened after school. We both got married in 1993 within a few months of one another and a fast friendship developed between Steve, Lyndall, Michele and myself over those fifteen years. This four way friendship will never be the same without Stevie. Although Steve never cared for sport, he did eventually share a beer or two with me, usually with Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood or Jaco Pastorius in the background. He was my closest friend. He truly cared about me and was interested in what was going on in my life. Living far apart in Jo’burg and Cape Town meant that there were many long phone calls. Steve would call me on average every six weeks. It didn’t bother him that I called less seldom. He just continued to call. Often with the salutation: “Mr. Carr”. There have been ups and downs in life. Steve was always there for me even when he was nursing his own pain. He would medicate me with music, making musical compilations of his favourite artists to help me through my difficulties. This is how I got to know the music of Rich Mullins. Steve also went through some challenging times. And I did my best to be there for him. He could make me laugh and his exploits could not but raise a smile. His wife, Lyndall called him ‘Captain Chaos’; since things happened to Steve on a weekly basis that happened to most people only once in a life time. Wherever Steve was, pandemonium and mayhem was soon to follow. Put Stevie in a room and something outrageous was about to happen. Steve had a unique way of braaing which involved a full bag of charcoal and a Weber. Needless to say this combination creates heat unrivalled in most braais turning it into more of an incinerator than your standard or garden variety braai. Soon flaming wors was being tossed into the pool. Lyn told me of another time when a gas heater also found itself in the pool; clearly Steve’s method of choice for extinguishing flames! I still remember him recounting the story to me of how his steering wheel came off the steering column in his hands, while driving on the freeway. Consumer Crusader that he was, this situation ended at the Board of Barlow World, the holding company of the Auto Dealership at which the car had been purchased. There was a time when Steve was involved in providing medical care for a certain prisoner in gaol. He was unhappy with the way in which the Prison Officials were dealing with their inmate, believing that all people should be entitled to good medical care and let this be known in no uncertain terms. Soon, Steve was convinced that he was being followed and that he and his family were at risk due to the unpopular view he took. Such was the life Steve lived. Steve was passing through Jo’burg en route from an AIDS conference in some exotic location and SAA managed to lose his luggage. NOT a good idea! SAA had no idea who they were dealing with and what would soon transpire. Steve never took such things lying down and such was the intensity of the man, that by the end of the evening, he managed to get Coleman Andrews, the then CEO of SAA on the line, requiring him to get involved in the lost luggage incident, particularly in view of the ‘life saving drugs’ he was carrying. Page 1 of 2

Steve was the kind of guy who was always surrounded by these types of wild and unusual events. He was truly a man of extremes. Steven was an example to us all in how he loved completely, unconditionally and cared sincerely for anyone who came across his path. He was no respecter of persons. Stevie loved his wife Lyndall and his daughter Sarah. They were unselfish in allowing him to give himself so freely to all those around him. Lyn provided the rock solid foundation that a wild man like Steve needed to get through the highs and lows of life. Though he didn’t always have as much time as he wanted with his family – his love for them was clear and palpable. Lyn, Steve and Sarah made a beautiful family. Lyn and Sarah, I hope you both know just how much your husband and father loved you both. Steve walked a rocky road with the church and church people BUT he loved God. He hated hypocrisy but he loved people and like Jesus, his heart went out to those who were in the most distress; who needed healing of whatever kind; to those who had the greatest needs. Steve had a very honest relationship with God. He would rage against God in terms of all the injustice in the world and at the same time cry out to Jesus in his most anguished times. He had a deep love for the Lord amid all the unanswered questions. Matt, he loved and admired you. He was so very fond of you and spoke very highly of you; his Harvard professor brother! I know Stevie is with the Lord – it seems that the Lord has a way of taking the special ones home early and many of Steve’s heroes appear to have graduated early. I know that this is an interlude and that I will see him again. I know too that his death from God’s perspective was not untimely. And though it leaves us with so much pain – there is reason and meaning in this. Stevie baby, I love you and we will walk and talk together again. Your life was a triumph! In closing, I would like to read to you Psalm 139: 7-16

7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

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