Statement from father about son, his faith

Dan Kok, the father of Nate Kok, has released the following statement about his son, who was killed in a traffic crash Tuesday.

"Nate was a compassionate, vibrant young man. These words were written in a letter to himself as part of a class assignment in May of 2017. I'm including a couple of the quotes.

" 'This brings me to the most important part of my life right now, God and his truth. A particular occurrence in my life that has opened my eyes this year was choir. Choir, in this year, has given me a glance into deeper, more complex and gratifying worship of God which is with my actions. The Lord said that whoever loves others loves me. This holds true especially in what I do on a daily basis or in other people's normal days.

'Right now I have a few goals that I could help myself with. The first is to keep true to the course of school and to do my very best in all of my classes and learning. My second goal is to have a good relationship with all the teachers that I have. I want to get to know them and also help them grow as well. My third and final goal is to reflect Jesus in all the ways that I can in a class and in sports.'

"We firmly believe in the providence of God, that God had a plan for Nate's life on this Earth and that He took Nate home at exactly the day, time, and place that He had preordained from before Nate was born," Kok said.

"Although we will still have the pain that death brings, we have complete trust in God's plan for why this happened."