EPISODE 2
It was no surprise to anyone that Krickitt as energetic and athletic. Her dad had once coached high school basketball and baseball. Her mother coached gymnastics, which Krickitt had taken a liking to from the time she was old enough to make her way down a
balance beam. In fact, she learned how to do a back handspring before she knew how to write her name.
I thought I was a sports fanatic, but Krickitt put me to shame. From kindergarten on, she practiced gymnastics every day after school in her mom’s gym, and she put in five hours a day during the summers. At sixteen, she tore the rotator cuff in her right shoulder, but her orthopedic surgeon told her an operation would probably kill her chances for a college scholarship. So she suffered through and just kept at it, excelling in floor exercises and the balance beam she didn’t let a little pain stop her.
It was no surprise that Krickitt got multiple scholarship offers from schools with reputable gymnastics programs. She ended up choosing California state university at Fullerton, which had offered her a full gymnastics scholarship. She was a two-time Academic All-American there before giving up competition after she tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during her senior year.
Though many of our initial conversations were about sports, Krickitt wasted no time getting to the spiritual part of our relationship. A few months into our friendship, she wrote this: “You said I can ask you anything, so I must be honest, Kimmer. You know that I am a Christian. Being a Christian Is having an ongoing intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I guess what I have been wondering this whole time is if you were a Christian too --- if you had made the decision to ask Christ into your life to pay the penalty of your sin, and give you eternal life like he has promised if we ask.”
Her faith was her life, and no matter what else she thought about me, she had to have a peace about my spiritual side before she could have any sort of relationship with me. As we talked through this part of our lives, we learned we were both Christians and had discovered Christ at the same age, but from that point our spiritual journeys had gone in different directions.
I was fourteen years old when I first learned about Jesus while at a friend’s house. When I heard that Christ had died for me so my sins could be forgiven, it was the most awesome news I’d ever heard. I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my parents about it. But when I started telling them what I felt, it didn’t click with them at all.
My parents were nominal churchgoers, but I don’t think they had ever felt what I was feeling at that moment. We had never gone to mass regularly, although Grandma Helen took us when she had the chance. As a family we never talked about religion. But the message of Christ had touched me. It wasn’t a quick process, but in time I came to fully trust and follow Jesus as my savior.
Krickitt learned about Jesus from a little booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws. Its message filled her with excitement and curiosity, and she decided then and there that she would commit her life to following Christ. But no one else knew she made that life-altering decision on that day. She didn’t even totally know, at the time, what that decision would mean for her life and for eternity. She didn’t confirm her decision with anyone and didn’t get involved in church programs at the time. When she started college, she finally got involved in a church, the Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton. While there her spiritual life transformed through the teaching is Pastor Charles Swindoll and College Pastor Steve McCracken.
During the summer of 1991, Steve led a mission trip to Hungary. Since Krickitt had just blown out her knee, she suddenly had time on her hands after years of daily workouts. When she heard about the Hungary trip, she saw it as a God-given opportunity to pour all the time and energy she had always put into gymnastics into something else. So she and her friend (and later roommate) Megan Almquist took on the challenge of being missionaries for nine weeks that summer. They had the incredible opportunity of spending time with and talking to people who were starved for Jesus’ message of hope after generations of religious oppression.
I thought I was pretty faithful, but when I saw how Krickitt lived her life I was amazed. She had incorporated her faith into every part of her life. She wasn’t a Christian just on Sunday mornings; being a Christian was the core of who she was. And I adored that about her.

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