June 5, 2000
Texas teen left witnessing legacy
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___CALVERT--Nine days short of 16 years--plus an eternity.
___That's how long Karen Wiese's family and friends hope her testimony of her faith will continue to change lives through the website she created before her death.
___Like many teenagers, much of Karen's website is about her friends, school and other things, but she also felt compelled to share her faith in Jesus Christ and to include Bibles verses which were important to her.
Karen Wiese
___Karen had told her mother, Gilsie, she was building a site, but her mother had not seen it. "I didn't even know the address," she said.
___After Karen's death, a friend asked her if she had seen the site, and she said no. She then was told the address, www. geocities.com/heartland/ranch/ 9777/main.html.
___"At first I couldn't look at it, but about a week later I went back to it, and I was just so proud," she said.
___The website is merely an extension of what Karen did before her death, however, her mother said.
___"One of her friends came by and said, 'What I'll always remember about Karen is that she was never ashamed to talk about Christ. She didn't care what anyone else believed, but she was proud she was a Christian,'" she remembered.
___ Her mother agreed that Karen was verbal about her beliefs.
___"Karen always stood up for what she thought was right and would discuss, argue, and/or debate her point endlessly. I used to laugh and say she'd argue with God if he'd let her. Well, I wonder if he's getting a word in edgewise."
___Karen was killed in a one-vehicle accident after her pickup truck wandered onto the shoulder of the road and she overcorrected while trying to steer back onto the roadway.
___"It's so hard to understand why God took her," her mother said. "She was such a great leader and example to others. There were over 600 people who visited the mortuary, and 800 people attended her funeral. Even if we were from a large city that would be a large crowd, but our little town only has 1,200 people. She touched so many hearts all over the county."
___"You can't begin to imagine what quality of girl this was. Karen was mature above her years," said Pastor Larry Blackmon of First Baptist Church in Hearne, where Karen was active in the youth group. Evidence of that maturity abounded, her friends and family say.
___She also spoke at her grandfather's funeral just more than a month before her own as she read poems she had written in his honor.
___When speaking of Karen, conversation always comes back to her love for Christ and how that translated into a love for others, her friends and family said. She started the Bible study at her junior high, played Mary in the Christmas play, taught Vacation Bible School and was an active and vocal witness.
___Knowing her daughter touched the lives of so many is a comfort, but her mother misses her daughter terribly.
___"I don't believe I'll ever understand why this happened to her, but right now I have to be thankful for being blessed with having her around nine days short of 16 years."
___
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