ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996 TAG: 9607220115
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NARROWS
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
A RISING SENIOR at Wake Forest, Matthew Alexander meant the world to his parents and to his uncle, the Rev. Don Clements.
A Presbyterian congregation in Narrows got a firsthand look at the pain - and the hope - of the surviving family members of one of the 230 people who perished in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 last week.
The Rev. Don Clements, pastor of Valley Presbyterian Church in this Giles County town, focused his preaching Sunday on a remembrance of his 20-year-old nephew, Matthew Alexander.
Alexander was a rising senior at Wake Forest University who was flying to France a few weeks early for a semester-in-Europe program. Alexander intended to meet up with some missionary friends and work with them before proceeding to Dijon to pursue French language studies, his uncle said.
Alexander was the son of the Rev. James and Tari Alexander of Florence, S.C. He was majoring in French on a four-year Army ROTC scholarship at Wake Forest and intended to go into Army intelligence, said Clements, a former minister at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg.
Matthew was clearly the "Pride of the Alexanders," Clements said. "We all sort of assumed that after completing his military obligations, he would go into the ministry."
Clements shared his grief with congregation members Sunday and said he focused his message to them on how two themes of Christian faith apply to a sudden tragedy like the jetliner's plunge into the Atlantic: being ready to die themselves someday; and being prepared to tell others about their Christian faith.
"We're like everyone else in the world, we're grieving; there's this huge hole," Clements said of his family. But the message he has tried to convey as a spokesman for the Alexanders is that they also have a feeling of hope.
"While the world ... might have looked at Matthew as the `Pride of the Alexanders,' the family's real pride is that spiritual strength that God has given us," Clements said. "Strength to get through tragic events such as this plane crash. Strength to trust in Jesus Christ for everything, even the tragic."
Clements will travel to South Carolina this week to conduct a memorial or funeral service for his nephew.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB