Inspire, Spring 2005

His parents had e-mailed regularly and he said he missed their Christmas Day call by a few minutes. Knill said after hearing about the direction and scope of the tsunami, he knew right away that his parents would have been in danger. At Khao Lak, there was no higher ground, “no mountain area for them to run to,” he said. Cathy Smith, a family friend, said the couple had talked them out of coming to Khao Lak where the four were to have celebrated New Year’s and had arranged for them to meet at a different resort. Instead of celebrating, however, the Smiths spent days searching morgues and hospitals for their friends. Two other family members from British Columbia flew to Thailand to join the Smiths in the search. Lists of names and photos of the dead posted on bulletin boards provided no clues. What they found instead were the couple’s passports, washed up together on the beach where they had been staying. “Even until we received the death certificates, we had hope,” Patrick Knill said. “Every day gets worse. The odds get slimmer. But we all kind of knew.” Two weeks ago, the family got word that the bodies of John and Jackie Knill had been positively identified through autopsies. John Knill’s body had been found Dec. 31 and his wife’s on Jan. 13 — on the same beach but apart from one another. At the time Pilet presented the photos to their sons, he said he felt compelled to answer their one nagging question: Why didn’t their parents just run? “I walked that beach. There was really nowhere for them to run to,” he said. “Initially, it probably didn’t even cross their mind to get away. At the point they took that last picture, they had to have known — but by then it was too late.” Inspire 25 You Can Aid in Tsunami Relief! SGA and AD7 have teamed up to create the Cedarville University Tsunami Relief Fund. Their prayerful goal is to see the Cedarville family raise a collective gift of $20,000 for tsunami victims. To be a part of this project, send your donation to the Cedarville University Division of Christian Ministries, Attn: Cedarville University Tsunami Relief Fund, 251 N. Main St., Cedarville, OH 45314. Gifts must be received by April 15. Breaking News! In late February, Christian Pilet ’88 was featured on ABC News as a “Person of the Week.” Read the article at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/PersonOfWe ek/ story?id=532106&page=1. In March, CNN ran a story about Chris’ continuing search for people seen in the Copyright 2005, Seattle Times Company. Used with permission. All photos courtesy of Chris Pilet.