By Mollee Francisco

Though just 24 years old, Melissa Just has now been a widow four times longer than she was a wife.

In fall of 2004, Just lost her husband of only eight months in a motorcycle accident. But rather than dwell on questions like, “Why did this happen to me?” Just wondered “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Immediately after the accident, I knew God had something planned for me,” she said.

Three years later, she is commemorating Jon’s life and the anniversary of his death with a motorcycle ride for charity.

“It helps to balance out the emotion,” she said.

This year will mark the third annual Jon Just Get ‘Er Done Memorial Motorcycle Ride. The ride kicks off Saturday in Firemen’s Park at 1 p.m. Just thinks the ride is exactly the kind of event her husband would have enjoyed.

“He’d dance,” she said with a smile. “He’d be so excited. He loved motorcycles, loved God and loved riding in big groups.”

The ride will raise funds for the purchase of motorcycles and dirt bikes for native pastors in foreign lands. In the past two years they’ve raised $17,500 and purchased six motorcycles for pastors in Africa. It’s a cause that has become near and dear to Just’s heart after the death of her husband. She has spent the last five months in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) meeting with some of the very pastors that will receive the fruits of their labor.

Wrong stereotypes

Just and Jon met at a young age, while they were both attending Northern Pines summer camp in Lake Geneva, Wis.

A few months later, in Dec. 2002, they began dating. By May, Jon was already designing Just’s engagement ring. He proposed in July, at the same summer camp where they had first met and they were married in January 2004.

The accident

“I hate telling people he died in a motorcycle accident,” Just confessed before she went on to explain how cautious her husband was on the bike.

“He saw things that I never even noticed,” she said.

Just said that she was “never really super concerned” about Jon riding his bike until the weekend before the accident.

“I felt really uneasy,” she said. “It was the first time I felt that way.”

Just still remembers the morning before the crash. It was September 29, 2004. Jon was 23 years old.

“I asked him not to ride because it was cold,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Fall’s coming. It might be my last chance.’”

So off he went to work on his bike. Just recalls talking with him during the day via phone and email. They made plans to meet at church after work where they would be leading a youth group together.

“I was sitting at the church waiting for him to come,” she recalled. Minutes ticked past their appointed meeting time.

“I figured he got caught up at work,” she said.

But as more time went by, Just became angry.

“I thought he made some stop that he didn’t tell me about or that he was out riding his bike around,” she said. Just called Jon’s phone twice, but there was no answer.

“At 6:45 p.m., he was late for our leader meeting,” she said.

Just called her husband a third time and this time, a woman picked up. It was a nurse from Hennepin County Medical Center. She told Just that her husband had been in an accident and that she needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

“Your entire body goes into panic mode,” Just said. Just quickly found a ride to the hospital, calling her family and Jon’s family en route to let them know what had happened.

When she finally arrived at the hospital, it was already too late.

“We were ushered into a conference room with clergy and a nurse,” she recalled. “They tried to tell me they do that for everyone, but I had a really bad feeling.”

The doctor came in and delivered the news Just was not ready to hear.

“He said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but your husband passed away.’”

It took months to figure out what happened that evening, Just said. State Patrol believes that Jon was on an off-ramp when he hit a rock or something that sent his bike skidding across the pavement and into the curb. As the bike hit the curb, Jon was thrown off and up against the guard rail.

“It was that impact that did it,” said Just. “He didn’t have a scratch or bruise otherwise.”

A purpose-driven life

In the time that followed, Just relied on her faith to get her through.

“It was all faith,” she said. “I don’t know how people do it without faith.”

She was a regular churchgoer to Christ Presbyterian and the Upper Room churches in Edina. And it would turn out to be a church presentation on volunteer work in Africa that gave Just renewed vigor and purpose.

“I had seen the presentation before,” she said. “But for some reason, that night it just resonated.”

Then she learned that the church was interested in adding another member to their staff in the DRC.

“I just told my friends, ‘I think I’m going to the Congo,’” she recalled.

Just applied for the position and sent out prayer requests to her friends and family on the subject.

“I completely left it up to God,” she said.

Just would eventually be chosen for the position and given two and a half weeks to prepare to leave.

“It all just worked out,” she said. “In April I was on a plane.”

Off to another world she went, unsure of what awaited her.

“It was a huge culture shock,” she admitted.

The DRC underwent a civil war in the late 1990s to overthrow a ruler. In the process, some four million people were killed. Though the war was declared over in 2001, there is continued turmoil as rebel factions carry on the fight.

Those that survived the clash have worked to pick up the pieces with the help of volunteers like Just. Just’s job description includes a wide variety of responsibilities from working with HIV orphans to aiding an orthopedic surgeon to helping with spiritual development and even agriculture.

“I wasn’t prepared for how I would be treated as a white person,” she said. “They expect because you’re white and you’re from America, that you’re an expert. It’s been humbling.”

While residents of the DRC have been looking to Just for help, Just has also received help from the people of the DRC. She works with a widow’s group and has found herself sharing her own story of loss and receiving support from those who know what she is feeling.

“A lot of my healing has happened in Goma over the last five months,” she said. “I’ve had all this time to sit and think and deal with my loneliness and pain.”

Healing

Just doesn’t know if she’ll ever be healed. “I don’t know what healing looks like,” she said. But she does know that Jon will always be a part of her life.

“I never want to stop thinking about him,” she said. “I never want to forget the eight months we were married.”

Having the memorial ride to look forward to helps. Just has always seen it as a good opportunity to catch up with family and friends that she’s lost track of through the year.

And this year, she will be armed with personal stories of those they will be helping – the stories of pastors looking for an efficient way to reach those in countries like the DRC. And she is hopeful that the monies raised with the ride will go to some of those pastors that she has met.

“People keep telling me that Jon would be proud,” she said.

Third annual Jon Just Get ‘Er Done Memorial Motorcycle Ride

Sunday, Sept. 30

Firemen’s Park

Registration begins at 12:30 p.m.

Freewill donations taken

For more information, go to www.jonjust.com, email justgeterdone@hotmail.com or contact David and Cindy Just at (952) 368-4241.