I recently visited with Ronnie and Susan McKinney of Cordele to learn about their daughter, Amanda. This article is longer than most of my postings but it is worth the read.
Some lives shine so brightly with the presence of Christ that you cannot speak of them without sensing the pleasure of God. Their lives become a testimony of what God can do with a heart fully His. That describes Amanda.
It was planned as a ski trip by the College Ministry at Statesboro First Baptist Church, but God had other plans. It didn’t snow. So, the group studied the Bible instead.
That messed‑up ski trip became a turning point in Amanda’s life—something like Saul’s Damascus Road, though Amanda was no enemy of Christ. Far from it.
She had accepted Christ as a young girl and was baptized at the age of eight. She grew into a bright, joyful college student who loved everyone, and everyone loved her.
She had the voice of an angel and sang at every opportunity. At five years old she stood on a Coca‑Cola crate at Ebenezer Baptist Church and raised the rafters with a voice more powerful than singers three or four times her age.
As she grew, she fell in love with opera. How such a voice came from such a tiny person was a mystery—but no one wanted to solve it. They just wanted to hear her sing.
Amanda was a born leader. Through her servant‑leader’s heart she influenced her classmates to strive for the best and settle for nothing less. She excelled in everything she attempted.
She tutored a struggling high‑school student whose grades were slipping beyond hope. Her encouragement lifted him. He went from failing to passing, and he never forgot it. He wrote a note one day saying he would remember her impact for the rest of his life.
Amanda didn’t just walk into a room. When she entered, the entire atmosphere lifted. From gymnastics to academics, Amanda shined.
After high school she chose Georgia Southern University. The University of Georgia was too big. Amanda wanted to know people—not be a number.
A sorority reached out to her, and she found a home among the young women there. She quickly rose through the ranks and was elected President.
It was during this time that the snowless ski trip collided with her life. Unlike many, she had not drifted from her faith in college.
She was active in church and lived her Christian walk openly. Anyone looking from the outside would say she was a committed believer—and she was. But that weekend changed something deep inside her.
What began as a ruined ski trip became a radical recommitment. Discipleship became more than a word—it became a way of life. She told her parents about the trip and her rededication. From that moment on, it was obvious that her walk with Christ had deepened.
Inside the front cover of her journal, she wrote Luke 19:40: “I tell you,” He replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Amanda would not keep quiet about her relationship with Jesus Christ.
She was on fire for the Lord. Her passion confronted casual Christianity. As sorority president, she wanted her sisters to focus on what truly mattered. Some were uncomfortable. Some accused her of being in a cult. That stung—but it did not stop her.
The fruit of her leadership was undeniable. Under her guidance, the sorority achieved the highest grade-point average at Georgia Southern and led the campus in philanthropic giving.
Amanda’s influence was unmistakable. She was awarded Georgia Southern University’s Greek Woman of the Year—the highest honor given to a sorority member. Amanda’s life was so influential that the name of the award would one day be, the Amanda McKinney Greek Woman of the Year.
One Sunday, the music minister at Statesboro First Baptist asked her to sing a duet with a young man she had never met. It was a divine appointment with Cass.
Amanda sensed a call to missions, and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) called her to serve in the rich mission field of California. Her singing partnership with Cass grew into a close friendship, and soon they were making plans for their future together.
Her campus minister told NAMB leadership that Amanda was part of a “dream team.” She, Cass, and another friend visited New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with plans to attend after graduation.
While there, Amanda fell in love with the neighborhood children. A photo at her home in Cordele shows her with her arms full of little girls drawn to her like a magnet.
Amanda’s faith was not loud; it was steady. It was the kind of faith that would one day carry others—even when she no longer could.
There could not have been prouder parents than Ronnie and Susan. Every week they went somewhere with Amanda. When she went to college, they spent many weekends in Statesboro attending her events and cheering her on.
They noticed the difference in her life after that snowless ski weekend. Ronnie remembers when Amanda told him she felt called to the mission field.
He braced himself, expecting to hear she was headed to a remote tribe in Africa. Instead, she said she felt called to missions in Lake Tahoe. Ronnie laughs about that now—but then adds, “There are lost people there who need Jesus too.”
One night, Susan woke up at 3:00 a.m. She saw lights in the driveway—two sheriff’s cars. She and Ronnie knew it could not be good. It wasn’t. It was the worst news a parent can receive.
Earlier that day at the Georgia Ports Authority, a truck—likely not meeting safety standards—awaited the loading of a thirty‑ton press. The trailer was so unstable it flipped the first time they loaded it. The crew righted it and loaded it again. They knew it wasn’t safe. They even said aloud it wasn’t a matter of if something would happen, but when.
The “when” came around ten that night. The driver avoided the weigh station in Forsyth and took the curvy back roads of Butts County. As he rounded a curve, Amanda and two others approached from the opposite direction. The thirty‑ton press shifted and came off the truck just as their car passed. Amanda and one other never knew what hit them.
Thirty seconds in either direction would have changed everything. A bathroom break. A stoplight. A second helping at dinner. Just thirty seconds.
Crisp County Sheriff Donnie Haralson stood at the door and delivered the news. Ronnie and Susan struggled to breathe, hoping it was a nightmare they would soon wake from.
The next day people poured in. The front pasture became a parking lot. Ronnie said people were shoulder‑to‑shoulder inside the house. The local florist ran out of flowers—every arrangement was at the McKinney home.
The funeral was one of the largest the region had ever seen. Students came from Georgia Southern. The Butts County sheriff attended, though he had never met Amanda—he simply felt compelled to honor her.
Ronnie and Susan remember the attempts people made to comfort them. Some were well‑intended but unhelpful. Some quoted Romans 8:28—“all things work together for good.”
Scripture is always true, but in that moment, Susan said she just wanted to know how God could possibly work this for good. God had allowed her daughter to be killed. No verse could soften that blow.
Others said, “God needed another angel.” That hurt too. Well‑meaning, but not helpful.
Thirty seconds haunted them. Why didn’t God slow the truck? Why didn’t He delay the car? Why didn’t He intervene?
There were no answers. No words could take away the pain. God could have done something—but He didn’t.
Of all the people who came, one moment stood out to Ronnie. He looked out the window and saw a friend picking up fallen limbs in the yard. Later that friend came inside, sat on the floor beside Ronnie’s chair, and said nothing. That silent presence was the most comforting act of all.
Ronnie and Susan learned that in deep grief, you don’t need words—because there aren’t any. Susan said, “Just tell them you love them. Hold them. Be there.”
Susan later joined a grief group, and eventually she was asked to lead one. The pastor at First Baptist Church asked her to teach the deacons how to minister to families facing tragic loss. She taught them what to avoid saying—and what to do instead.
One thing Ronnie and Susan both affirmed: the pain never goes away. You just learn to live with it. Ronnie said it feels like a hole in his heart that will never heal. It may seem smaller at times, but it is always there.
Susan described grief as an explosion scattering pieces of her life everywhere. She gathers them, puts them in a box, and places it on a shelf. But the box shifts. Sometimes it falls. And she begins again.
There is no doubt Amanda is with the Lord. Ronnie and Susan engraved Philippians 1:21 on her grave: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Ronnie said those words describe Amanda’s life perfectly.
Amanda’s life was short, but it was full of joy, full of purpose, full of Jesus. And when God looked at the life He had shaped in her, He rejoiced.
Oh, and that young man that Amanda tutored. He recently called Ronnie, twenty years after the tutoring to tell him how she changed his life. That call meant more than the young man would ever realize.
Amanda’s story is not only a testimony of a young woman’s faith; it is a reminder that God delights in His children, and that the praise of God rests on every life shaped by His hands.
Amanda’s sole desire was that her life glorify Jesus Christ. I know that when God called her into His presence, she heard the words, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.”
