On September 1, 2010, Moody alumnus Christian Konow ’84 strapped himself into his Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter and started the engine for a routine maintenance check. As the blades began to spin, a strong gust struck the helicopter and the nearby hangar wall, causing a vortex that made the helicopter buck. The helicopter overturned, bursting into flames.

Fuel began pouring into the cockpit. Fire quickly engulfed Christian, igniting his hair and sucking oxygen out of his lungs. He buried his face in his clothes, thinking, There’s no way I’m getting out of here.

Then another split-second thought troubled him: Now I’m going to die; have I believed right? This thing of studying the Bible and following Christ, is all that I’ve believed right?

Trapped, Christian’s thoughts turned to the God in whom he’d put his trust. I’m about to die. Show me the steps of how to get out of here—if you want me to. And help me stay calm.

Christian sensed three clear instructions, which, despite doubts, he followed one at a time: He lowered his right hand and undid his seatbelt, kicked hard with his right leg, and did a sit-up, throwing himself forward. Suddenly he was propelled out of the helicopter. “I was burning and smoking but tremendously calm,” he says. He moved to safety, pushed a Cessna out of harm’s way, then looked back to see the helicopter explode.

"I'm about to die. Show me the steps of how to get out of here—if you want me to."

A mechanic helped Christian get under a shower, putting the fire out. When the ambulance arrived and he was put on the stretcher, his body convulsed in pain and went into shock. At a local hospital, Christian was put on a ventilator; three days later he was airlifted to a burn unit in Santiago, Chile, where he spent 20 days in an induced coma.

Looking for Answers

Christian was born of German descent in southern Chile. He studied philosophy in public high school and read existentialists like Descartes. His readings pushed him to consider an absolute, which led to a quandary: “Where did it all come from? If God is God, why can’t we talk to him, like on the phone? Why so much hide and seek?” He recalls.

Christian didn’t know much about the Bible but he had heard a story of Mary, Joseph, and a donkey, which seemed childish. “I always assumed that people who believe religious things were dimwitted and superstitious and their beliefs didn’t go with science and reason and math,” he says.

But his questions persisted until he finally picked up a Bible and prayed: “If this book has some connection to you, God—if you do exist out there—I honestly would like to know.” He opened the Bible to 1 Corinthians 15:17 and read, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” Yet according to verse 20, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.” He pondered the words and prayed, So you’re telling me that if I know Christ, I can know God?

After becoming a believer, Christian understood Jesus Christ as a person, not an abstract idea. “I started interacting with Jesus and learning about Jesus and His character,” he says.

For several years he didn’t know any other Christians. Evangelicals in Chile were primarily poor and uneducated, he says. Later, during a student exchange program in Iron Mountain, Mich., he became involved in a church and was baptized. There, Pastor Lloyd Tornell ’37 pointed him toward Moody. After returning home, and despite resistance from his parents who wanted him to study for a lucrative career, Christian left Chile again—this time for Moody.

“I didn’t know the Scriptures, so I wanted to know what this book was all about,” Christian explains. He started in Moody Aviation and later transferred to the missions program.

He struggled with a rebellious streak at Moody (“I was the kind of person who did not abide by all the rules,” he says), but he finished his three-year diploma and says Moody provided him with a good biblical foundation. It is also where he met Kathleen Genheimer ’84, a music major whose parents and grandparents had been missionaries in South Africa.

After Christian and Kathleen married, they moved to South Carolina, where he completed an MA in missions at Columbia International University in 1987. “I matured a little more by that point,” he says. After they moved to Chile, he and two others started and began pastoring a church called Amigos de la Biblia (Friends of the Bible). To support his wife and four sons, he managed a family agricultural business. In 2008 Christian and an old friend started Navitas, a renewable energy company. They bought a helicopter to do survey work around the mountains. “We succeeded. We’re still doing it,” he says.

Meanwhile he planted a church in Osorno, Chile, called El Galpon (the Barn), which recently entered into association with New Life Community Church, founded by Mark Jobe ’84 in Chicago. “My passion is church planting,” Christian says. And his passion for God reached a whole new level after the helicopter accident.

Time Alone, Time with God

Christian remembers the induced coma. “You’re lying there like a corpse, and it’s lonely and dark. You cannot talk to your wife or doctor, and there’s nobody there,” he recalls. “So I said, God, where are you in all of this? Why did I get out of the helicopter?”

Finally, a reply came in the form of a question: Have you ever lacked anything in your life? Have you been hungry, naked?

That was simple. No, my basic needs have always been covered.

Second question: That being the case, would you not be willing to trust Me even under these circumstances?

Trickier to answer. Tell me what you mean by trusting.

The reply: Absolute silence.

Christian realized he couldn’t fake an answer. He understood the struggle between wanting to be the focal point of his own life and depending completely on Christ. But he didn’t want to stay in that loneliness. He had to be honest. So okay, God, here goes my final answer: The Lord is my Shepherd. I have never wanted. . . . Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for You are with me.

Christian continued, God, if you want me to die, I refuse to die without You. But if we do this journey, we do it together. Let’s do it.

Suddenly Christian didn’t feel alone. “I was in such good company. I don’t know how to explain how un-alone I was.”

When he woke up from the coma, he couldn’t speak yet. With his thumb sticking out from a bandaged hand, he scrawled his thoughts on paper. His wife became emotional. Thousands of people had been praying for his recovery, and “I have been praying Psalm 23 for you,” she said.

The Afterburn

Christian remained hospitalized for several surgeries and had to learn to walk again, but on October 13, 2010, he was transferred to rehab.

Since his recovery, he has shared his story in churches. “We’ve seen a lot of people come to Christ,” he says. “But it’s not about me. Even this accident is not about me. . . . It’s about God showing up and getting involved.”

“God takes you to the end of yourself and you’re helpless, and that’s what you’re supposed to be—helpless,” he tells his audience. “I don’t know if you believe in God or not, but I can tell you one thing: you don’t want to die alone. You don’t want to hear your voice and have no echo on the other side.”

“We’ve seen a lot of people come to Christ. But it’s not about me. Even this accident is not about me. . . . It’s about God showing up and getting involved.”

Christian urges others to trust Jesus Christ completely. “He is Yahweh, the Maker, Elohim, the Creator, the Alpha and the Omega, the source of life, the One who designed it all. Don’t usurp that.”