Horrible Accident

Last night we were involved in a horrible accident. At about 10:30 at night, our car struck a 16 year old boy who had darted out in front of us while trying to cross the street. I want to take a minute to describe how thing unfolded that evening.

As I blogged a few days ago, Hailey’s birthday was on Friday, so we decided to take her on a surprise trip on a house boat in the backwaters about an hour away from Trivandrum in the city of Kollam. We were supposed to leave at 4PM to board the boat at 5:30. At about 4:30, we realized that our driver was heading in exactly the opposite direction of Kollam, toward a town called Kovallam. Adam had even shown him the city name in writing to make sure he knew where we were headed. So he apologized and turned around, but now we were going to be over an hour late to get to Kollam.

When we were within about 10 minutes of our destination, we noticed a government official in the road. He let the car in front of us go but then waved us to take a detour. Apparently some local political rally was starting, and they were blocking the streets. Our detour led us into these remote fishing villages with single track roads. Immediately we were stopped by a train crossing and had to wait about 10 minutes for it to pass. A few minutes later, our drive followed the ‘lead’ car in the detour line around a tight turn that didn’t look like the proper route, only to find that it wasn’t- it came to an even tighter turn and just as you came out of the turn was huge pile of golf ball-sized gravel. The car in front of us landed right in the middle of the pile. He proceeded to try and get unstuck by gunning the engine, which set these rocks firing into our car at high speed. Our drive couldn’t back out because there was a line of cars behind him wedging us in. It was so frightening because these rocks were coming right at Adam’s side window and the front windshield where he was sitting. By a miracle, the car was undamaged. With direction from the local villagers, the line of cars backed out and we were on our way.

When we eventually came to the main road, our driver was lost and had to ask several people which way to go. At this point, we were over an hour and a half late, and Adam and I began to question whether or not to cancel the trip. We’ve grown to become suspicious when several weird things like this happen in a row. We decided that we’d driven so long and were so close that we might as well continue. We found the dock and went out and had a nice time celebrating Hailey’s birthday on the boat. We started to head home at around 9PM.

Adam and I have noticed that in general, traffic has changed here since our last visit several years ago. People used to just step out in to traffic, and the cars would drive around you. That is not the case anymore; cars are not stopping for people as they cross and driving is even more aggressive. It was dark as we drove home, and the whole way Adam and I both had a bad feeling. Adam even joked with our driver Rinish that he was earning his money tonight and that driving at night was a lot harder. I was in the back with girls, and I kept seeing these huge buses crossing into our lane and coming closer than normal to hitting us head on. Rinish would have to pull way off to the side of road to avoid some of them. At one point, we were in a stretch of road in a sparsely populated village area that had relatively few cars, so Rinish started driving fast to make up time. He must been going double the speed we normally do, around 45 miles per hour.

Then it happened- I heard a crash, felt Rinish jerk the car to the right, and saw Adam’s side window shatter two inches from his head. He was choking out ‘oh my God, oh my God’ over and over again, and my blood ran cold. I was afraid to even ask but yelled back ‘what did we hit’ and he said ‘we hit a person’. The tinting on the window must have prevented it from shattering all over Adam, and I could see part of the window broken inward toward him, and the side mirror was ripped off and dangling. I was so afraid that he had been hurt. He told me he was alright, and Rinish pulled over and stopped. Adam immediately got out of the car and ran into the darkness toward the boy. It was a fair distance away because at our speed we had covered a lot of ground before stopping. Rinish followed Adam. Thank God the girls had both been sleeping and had missed the whole thing. They woke up to me crying and praying loudly and calling on Jesus to be in the situation. I didn’t even know what to pray at that point. I knew Adam had just witnessed something horrific and was most likely about to see something even worse, so I prayed for protection over him.

When Adam got the scene, the locals had already started gathering. He saw them drag the limp body of the boy by one arm off the road. He was shocked at the sight of the boy laying limp and at the callus manner with which the people were handling him. The locals then dropped the boy in a heap on the side of the road. Adam lifted his hands and prayed loudly and eventually dropped to his knees in prayer. He prayed that God would miraculously heal this boy, and that God would be glorified in the situation. Back at the car, I was praying the same thing. A few minutes later, a car pulled up and the locals dumped the boy in the back of it, and as Rinish tried to walk away they grabbed him and shoved him in as well and took off.

The girls and I stayed in the car as these few minutes unfolded. The crowd had gathered around us too, and a man opened the driver’s side door and got in the driver’s seat. I immediately yelled at the girls to get out. I had no idea what this guy’s intentions were and envisioned him driving off with us in the back seat. The crowd surrounded us, and Adam could see this so he started running back toward us. He could hear a guy running behind him and feared that it might be a relative thinking he was fleeing the scene, so he started walking. While I was standing there, I was crying because looking at the damage to the car, I thought this boy must be either dead or severely wounded. The local men kept telling me, ‘don’t be upset, it happens all the time’. They were completely unmoved by the situation and didn’t understand why we would be crying. Adam finally arrived, and we prayed together as a family. We again prayed for the boy and that Jesus would be glorified in this situation. At one point when the girls and I were standing there, I looked over at Hailey. She was standing there silent and a foot or two away from me. I expected that she’d be like Jackie, clinging to me with her head buried in my stomach crying. I thought she was in shock or something and asked her if she was alright. She looked and me and said, ‘I’m praying!’ and broke down in tears but stayed where she was. I was so moved to see that she didn’t turn to her earthly parent but turned instead to her heavenly parent for comfort.

Adam called his boss who arranged for another car to come and get us. When the car finally arrived, his boss called to tell Adam that he had made some other calls and found out that the boy was alright! From what we gather, he didn’t even have any broken bones. This boy who was hit at 45 miles an hour, shatter the window and left huge dents in the side of the car, and was unconscious on the street and appeared dead, was unharmed. We are convinced that God did indeed do a miraculous healing on the boy.

Needless to say, we were pretty shaken up on the drive home, even knowing the boy was alright. Today, we were still emotional over the whole event when we went to church. I might not have blogged about it before, but for several weeks now we have been going to a new church. Its small with only about 12 members or so. After each service, they invite anyone who wants to share up front to tell about what God is doing in their lives. Adam went up and shared our story from last night. After service, the congregation has lunch together, and after lunch today the pastor, Pastor Thomas, called Adam back into his office privately. Pastor Thomas had called Adam earlier in the week wanting to come over, but we were entertaining two other Americans from Adam’s work that night and couldn’t. Thomas explained that he had wanted to come over to get to know Adam because he felt God tell him that Adam was supposed to teach. He said that after hearing Adam speak today, he was convinced that this was the case. He told Adam that he had moved the congregation more in his short time of sharing than he as pastor had during his whole sermon.

While we were praying the other day, I prayed Romans 8:28, how ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.’ I do believe that God has worked this situation for His good. Perhaps God is calling Adam to a new purpose. Please pray with us for guidance and wisdom.