Fishing With Craig

On Saturday evening, 22 February 2025, my friend and brother in Christ Craig Hauquitz was killed in a motor vehicle accident while riding his bicycle. I want to write down my memories of him before they fade away. ¹

The email on Sunday morning read like a book title. “The Passing of Craig Hauquitz”. I expected an email with the sermon manuscript, but didn’t have a category for this. Once the meaning sunk in, it hit hard. How could this be? We just talked. I headed to church early (I mixed the service that morning) and witnessed the beauty of God’s people. It hit everyone hard. I saw the service order rearranged, songs swapped out, and sermon details adjusted in real time to give better voice to the emotions we would no doubt be expressing that morning. I love our thoughtfulness in the liturgy on any Sunday, but especially this day.

There is much I don’t know about Craig. In light of his death, I wish I could remember better the time we spent together. I wish we had talked more and done more. We were in Men’s Leadership Training together last year, so we attended weekly elders meetings, wrote papers on the same topics, and discussed them monthly. Before and during that year, our kids hung out and Craig coached Jonas’ basketball team, so our paths intersected that way, too. But the most memorable (and sadly only such) day was when we went fishing together.

I told him how I snuck over to the Pecos for a bit of fly fishing before picking up a group of kids (including his and mine) from a school camp in Glorieta, and he was very interested. “That sounds fun, I’d like to go sometime, can you take me?” I loved his directness and we soon made plans to go the following week. He volunteered to drive in his dad’s new Bronco, which is way cooler than my beat up Scion, so we met at his parents’ house. He wasn’t quite ready. Spending so much time outside the country made him more cultured than the average American (in my humble opinion), but he was still more New Mexican than German in his punctuality :). But we were in no rush and eventually headed out. Only to turn around before even leaving the neighborhood because he forgot something. I asked if he was a scatter brain sometimes, and he forwarded the question to Bryn who was bringing out his stuff: “Hey honey, am I a scatter brain sometimes?” She answered with a mostly non-verbal nodding mhmm “yeah, kinda” way. He just laughed.

We talked a lot in the 3 hours in the car that day. About how we met our wives, how God saved us, how I ended up in the US and he in Africa. It didn’t seem to take much to get him excited, especially talking about his family or work with college students. I don’t know if he’s an extrovert, but he sure acted like one. But he also freely shared the struggles of coming back to church and not being known by most people, despite being sent out by DSC. I am ashamed to say that I think we failed him and his family in that. He also reflected on his attitude concerning this, whether it was okay to be bothered by it, or if it was just pride or jealousy. For all his outgoing character, he was keenly aware of his inner man, his sinful heart, his relationship with God, and examined himself in meaningful ways. I think that sets a great example, and it certainly stood out to me.

In the Pecos valley I wanted to try out a few different spots. I had only fished one or two before and wanted to try out others. Craig approached the whole thing like an excited child: a bit naive but eager, not ashamed to ask questions and learn something new. He was genuine. His previous exposure to fly fishing, he told me on the way home, was a very brief trip in the US years ago, after which he brought all his gear to Africa to try and fly fish the ocean. I mean, I think that’s a thing, but it’s certainly not typical, and it’d be really difficult to figure out on your own without help. Accordingly, he hadn’t done much fly fishing before we went together.

When we arrived at the first spot and I started setting up he insisted on taking photos of us. At the time I thought “good idea, I wouldn’t have done that!” and am now glad that he did so. I could grow in capturing more of my life with others.

He soaked up all my instructions and went off a bit upstream to try it out. I stayed put and started fishing, too. When I looked up some minutes later to see how he was faring, he already had one on the line and caught it! First catch of the day!

Throughout the afternoon he ran with it, and there were stretches of time in which I didn’t see him at all as he was moving upstream. At the end of the day I was glad to hear that he caught several good-sized rainbows and really enjoyed himself!

In Matthew 4, Jesus calls his disciples to ministry with him and says they would be fishers of men. That was Craig, too. He was passionate about reaching people with the Gospel, with Cru in Africa and at UNM while he was here. He had a real heart to see something established here long term, and he thought highly of the local church. I think that combination is rare. He believed the same Gospel he shared with others, so I know he is with our Savior now, resting from his labors. I’ll see him again and we’ll laugh and rejoice and maybe go fishing again (if we still care about that kinda stuff).

Until then I commit to praying for his family long term. I can’t even imagine how hard this is for them. I also know that our God is good and kind, or as Jesus put it: “gentle and lowly”. I trust he will comfort the Hauquitzes, and I will pray to that end. I am always amazed at how Christians rally around each other in the short term to help, but I know in my own heart that it’s easy to forget as time passes and life gets busy. That’s why I need to write it down and be reminded regularly to pray (thanks PrayerMate for doing that for me). If you know the family, would you consider committing to praying for them, too?