Celebrating Derek Timothy Snellings
(Written by Tim and Deena Snellings
Presented by Tim Snellings, Derek's Dad)

We want to thank all of you for coming today, sharing your stories, donations of food, money, love and time.

The key words today are celebrate, hope and fun, please!!!

Our perspective - You might read a newspaper article that said Derek Snellings died. If you did, that would have been gross misreporting. To be accurate, the article really should say, Derek Snellings moved. He moved out of his tent (body) and into an eternal dwelling place in heaven with God.

With this perspective, we want to honor and celebrate some the uniquenesses of this precious boy's life with you. Derek had many phrases that he used, which will always remind me of him -

• When he first learned to talk one of his earliest phrases when you would ask him a question and his answer would most often be, "I just don't know". You'd ask, is that a kitty…he would answer, "I just don't know".
• He loved Curious George Books. To him, however, it was "cursiousy George".
• He actually wanted to make up his own language - he and Tyler would often joke about this and they would crack up saying such things as ("shut your permujian" - he actually wanted to write his own 'derektionary').
• Some of his other phrases were "How you doin'?", "Rigggghhhhhht", "I'm the ladies man" (or so he thought)

As another excellent example, he worked on a Spanish project with his friend Brent Hansen into fun. As we watch this video, please remember, It's OK to laugh with him. Derek really would want that.

Let's view a VIDEO of Derek's Spanish Project and see someone who took their work and turned it into fun.

Derek figured it out!! Three things were at his core: Fun, Peace and Jesus. They are all connected; you can't have one without the other.

1. With regards to Fun - we already saw just one example of this. Loved extreme sports - kayaking, snowboarding, paintball wars, skateboarding, jet skiing…liven' on the edge was fun for him. He liked going fast. I remember him launching me at high speed off of the back of a See Doo on Folsom Lake.

2. Another key to Derek's life Peace - Derek addressed areas of conflict in such a way that he would easily arrive at peace. Sharing things can be difficult. A common problem is kids borrowing each other's things without asking. However, Derek and Sierra addressed this by developing an "Understanding" where they could borrow each other's things anytime with out asking.

We all know Derek liked to have fun. When he would ask to do some extreme thing and I would say "no", instead of having a conflict about the issue, he interpreted my "no" as "Dad, you really want to say yes, so what you need is more information in order for you to get there." 9 out of 10 times he would make the case, come up with a Plan A that was acceptable and get his wish. He wanted to have Fun and Peace and convince us in a diplomatic way.

3. And third, at his core, was his faith in Jesus - Derek had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He would spend time daily with his One Minute Bible (on back table), praying and growing in Christ.

Make sure to check out his sophmore project, the 'Pizza Box', which shows on the outside of the box how he presented himself to the world - boy did he have fun, but on the inside of the box his softness, gentleness and Jesus are revealed. In fact, he cut out of his daily devotional the words on the inside of the box. Check it out.

He knew that without Jesus, he couldn't REALLY have ALL of the FUN and PEACE in life that he wanted. It was a package deal!!! THIS is what attracted people to Derek.

On a side note - Thanks to Derek's high school friends for being here today. I want to ask a favor of all of you NOW called Seniors. We were looking so forward to having Derek and his younger brother Tyler attending NU at the same time. I want to ask you Seniors, to step in on Derek's behalf and be his big brother or sister next year.

I'm going read a passage from the Bible that we, as a family hold on to.

John Chapter 14, Jesus said, "Do not let your hears be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Derek trusted in and believed in this. This is why we can CELEBRATE and have hope in knowing where Derek is right now!