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Since that time, her family – grounded in their Christian faith, found encouragement and hope from the many, many reassurances (some supernatural) that God gave them again and again since Janice’s death in December 2006. Following is one particular instance that continues to give the family strength and hope to carry on.
Some explanatory background leading up to this event is needed for clarity. When Janice was about 13 years old she taught herself PHP script and computer programming. From there, she spent many, many countless hours inventing an On-line computer game, similar slightly to Sim City (for those who might know of that educational game). Her game was based around 2 villages of panda bear communities interacting with one another. Each character had to be created: some warrior pandas, some farmers, some children, some teachers, and so on. We know not the exact rules of the game that she devised and monitored, but suffice it to say that she apparently received 1.5 million hits in a month from kids all around the world.
When Janice’s Dad saw what she was doing, he was most impressed. As a man gifted in building businesses himself, he asked her if she’d like to market the game. She thought that a good idea and agreed. He asked her what she called the game and she told him. He obtained for her a legal copyright certificate from the government on that name.
To cut a long story short, Janice had some misunderstanding with her host provider and somehow the whole data was irretrievably lost. Needless to say, she was totally devastated and despite parental encouragement to not give up, she walked away from the project. In hindsight, if there was ever a pivotal event in her life that could have possibly triggered her plunge into depression and mental health issues, that could well have been it, because she slowly started to change from that point forward.
Coming up to present time – end July 2008, the BLUE WAVE FOUNDATION had been formed to give hope to many young people struggling with depression, anxieties and suicidal thoughts. A 2-day video shoot was in progress in various locations in Vancouver, filming a dozen young guys and girls for a video clip to go on the main page of the BLUEWAVE website entitled OK2B BLUE - www.ok2bblue.com.
The professional film crew, under the directorship of Jay Lee of Vancouver, were coming to an end of first day of filming at a location on the train tracks in East Vancouver. At the eleventh hour, Jay decided to move the shoot a few blocks further along into the industrial area. He came upon a dead-end alley about 100 feet deep off of the street … overgrown with weeds, filthy dirty, a dumpster, used condoms and needles everywhere. The crew went in, set up and commenced filming of the final segment for the day.
Janice’s mother, Margaret, stood back, watching the filming, and happened to glance over her right shoulder to the wall running the length of the whitewashed alley wall. She was stunned to see one word, on its own, in large red letters that had been spray-painted onto the wall by somebody. The word said, “PANDEMONIUM” (see photo at end of this story).
Margaret was speechless. She waited until a break in the filming then called Jay over (Jay, in his mid-30’s, was a cousin to Janice, so this project was also close to his heart). As she slowly walked him out of the alley toward the street, she reminded him of the On-line computer game, with the panda bears, that Janice had created years before – he nodded. She then went on to ask him if he remembered the name that Janice had given to that game. He looked at her, a little perplexed, as she turned him toward the side wall of the alley and pointed to the large, red, spray-painted word in scrolled letters.
The name Janice had chosen for her game was … PANDA-MONIUM!!
It was an unbelievably emotional moment for both Jay and Margaret, trying to regain composure. What would be the odds on such an unusual word as “pandemonium” being found, on its own, spray-painted on an alley wall in East Vancouver – a location that just happened, at the 11th hour, to be picked by Jay for the last filming on that day!! The purposes of BLUEWAVE were birthed out of the tragic death of Janice Lee … what an awesome reminder was this writing on the wall.
As mentioned before, God has given many reassurances to the Lee family over the months since Janice’s death. This instance was an amazingly powerful, supernatural one, as if He was indicating his approval of what we’re trying to do for many young people, and giving our family the strength to carry on.
