Hiker's Family Arrives in San Juan to Remember a Young Man Who Turned His Life Around

It’s like —the man from San Juan Capistrano who in February—lived a lifetime in his three years in Orange County.

Only 24, he came from West Virginia to finish school at Concordia University—and to get sober.

Matt moved in many worlds, said pastor Dave Brisbin. He had his recovery world. He had his academic world, his wilderness world–“that was a big one for him"—his service world and his spiritual world.

He had the ability to “move from world to world and still be himself,” Brisbin said. “He was authentically himself.”

All of these worlds collided at his memorial service Saturday at The Effect, a church and “recovery ministry," in San Juan. The Pack family had a viewing and funeral service two weeks ago in West Virginia where upwards of 3,000 people came to show their respects. But the honoring of his life wasn’t complete without a trip to San Juan Capistrano, they said, where they could take a peek at all of those worlds.

He left his home in West Virgina three years ago as a boy and returned as a man, his father Larry Pack said to the over-spilling sanctuary. Larry Pack could see the transformation when his son came home to celebrate the holidays just a few months ago.

This time, it was his family’s turn to travel. They they said they wanted to meet the people who had been a part of this amazing transformation. They wanted to find the “missing jigsaw pieces” to Matt’s life.

It was a life that , as Matt was doing what he loved: soaking in the outdoors and living life to the fullest. He died Feb. 11 of suffocation while trapped halfway down Mildred Falls, southwest of Julian. 

His fatal trip was one of many adventures Matt crammed into his newly sober life. He loved to climb and rappel, run and cycle. He once complained he was slowing down because he took a whopping 18 minutes to run a 5K (that’s 3.3 miles).

He once cycled from Canada to Mexico to raise money for Children of the Americas, a charity for which he often made mission trips (you can see him in action here on one of his mission trips).

Brisbin and others met Matt when he first arrived in Orange County. He looked nothing like the outdoorsy, picture-of-health photos that flashed from two flat screens during Saturday's memorial. “He came with that haunted, frightened and impossibly young face,” Brisbin said.

Jeff Jones was Matt’s sponsor. “He was pale and thin, and he had a lot of stitches. And he had a hole in his heart. He didn’t have the desire to live.”

He went to live in a sober house called Sanctuary Home in San Clemente. And there the transformation began.

Eric “BZ” Botelho manages the house. Pack was part of the first “crew” to come through the doors. Matt was so full of life and light these past few years, Botelho said he had actually forgotten those dark, early days, until the rappelling accident brought back the memories.

Being in the recovery community, Botelho said he has become accustomed to attending memorial services. They typically follow a relapse that leads to a tragic overdose.

“We build up these walls,” he said. “When I got the news about Matt, I broke down for the first time in a long time.”

Matt didn’t arrive a Christian. “Institutional church and religion fit Matt like stainless steel board shorts,” Brisbin said. Matt proclaimed himself to be somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic. “He dared me to change him.”

So every Friday for a year, the two would meet at Starbucks and Matt would ask question after question. Finally, Brisbin told him: “Just go and find the living, breathing God, and wrap your religion around that.”

He did, and found his worship outdoors. “His temple, he found it outside in the trees, the rocks and the woods,” Brisbin said.

“He truly, truly made a 180-degree turn-around,” said Josh Davis, Matt’s “soul brother” and former roommate. 

Kurt J. Krueger, president of Concordia University in Irvine, also attended the service. He hosted the Pack family members on Friday at the school so that they could hear from the professors in his life. One of them couldn’t make it the memorial Saturday, so he sent an email, which Krueger read.

“'I love Matthew,’” Krueger read, adding as an aside: “First off, profs never say this. ‘He had an adventurous spirit, more concerned about what he could learn than his grades.’"

Matt was only one class away from getting his bachelor’s degree in psychology, Krueger said. So the university will award him his diploma this spring. He invited the family to return to California one more time, to accept the diploma and Matt’s cap and gown on his behalf.

A funeral for a 24-year-old has to have its modern twists. It was announced on Facebook. Another pastor, Darryl McFann, stumbled upon a text from Matt while he was cleaning out his message box. McFann had just sent a Thanksgiving greeting, probably en masse.

Matt wrote back: “Double-extra happy Thanksgiving to you. I love you and thank you for the big impact you played in my life.”

Another recovery buddy, Jon Okinaga, would check in on him all of the time by text. “How ya doing?” he would ask.

Matt’s reply was always the same: “Living the dream.”