It’s funny how fast things can change. I’ve been getting quite comfortable here in Romania. Comfortable with the ministry, with the contact, with my host family. Then Saturday night rolled around. It seemed like any other night. I was going to play football with Adi and his Romanian friends. We got to the gym and started kicking around. After a bit, Adi decided to call his dad to see why they were late. Moments later, Adi rushed back into the gym shouting in Romanian. All I heard in English was “come on, there is big problem”. We sped through the streets of Teaca toward Viile Tecii, the four Romanians in the car speaking loudly in unintelligible, but frightened phrases. Adi was crying, “Oh my God, why? Oh my God…”
Then I saw it. I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. It was like something out of a tv show or movie. Adi’s dad’s car was upside down, wrapped around a telephone pole. As we were getting out of the car, I asked “who is?” “My dad” was all Adi could say. I thought for sure Adi’s dad and the others in the car were dead. I stumbled out into the grass. It was colder than I remembered it being when I had left the house just minutes before without a care in the world. Adi slumped to the ground and I sat there with my arm around him while he cried. Panic was beginning to ensue as all the villagers began to come out to see what the commotion was. Suddenly, I realized that Adi’s dad was sitting with us. He had crawled out of the car and was sitting in the grass, obviosly shaken, but not badly injured.
I could clearly see a body in the ditch just yards away from me, and I was sure it belonged to my Romanian friend Danny. Time seemed to crawl, but eventually an ambulance came and police began questioning Adi’s dad. Just then, Danny walked up to me. It was weird, I had thought he was dead. Eventually I found out that the body accross the street was that of a female pedestrian who had been struck by the car as it careened off the road and into the telephone pole. I sat there and watched as she breathed her last on earth. I was powerless, unable to save her. I prayed and prayed, but she slipped away. I had to hide in a van because a rumor began to spread that Americans had killed her, and my contact was afraid it could get violent. I left and went home eventually.
Adi’s father was not drunk, as we first thought, but he will be going to jail for some time. It is a miracle that Adi’s dad and my Romanian friends Danny and Tonie were not killed but only sustained minor injuries. No one I knew had died and I thought I would be fine – that seeing someone die wouldn’t bother me, but this event has impacted me deeply.
Something changed in me when I was sitting next to my weeping friend and brother Adi watching a woman die. My heart broke. Until this point, I honestly have been concerned with my own survival, focused on making it through these eleven months. I have done my best to serve the people I come into contact with, but this was different. I love Adi and my heart was broken for his. I was mourning for his grief. I am broken for Adi. It is what I have been praying for, but I didn’t want it like this.
Adi works for a factory owner and his job involves him going to Germany for several days at a time a few times a month. He had to leave for such a trip the night after the accident. My heart is totally broken for him, forced to be out on the road alone except for his boss while all of this settles. He may not see his dad again before he goes to jail (potentially for a long time), and I know that he is grieving. Please pray for Adi. Pray for Adi’s father, who is not a Christian. Pray that this event will draw them both closer to Jesus. I know that God meets us in our brokenness, so I’m praying that He does it again, because there is brokenness here.
I am learning how to love and how to be broken for people, but it is not an easy lesson. Things change so fast. A mother, wife, and friend is gone. A man’s life is about to change forever, and it was all on the way to play some football. I don’t know why this happened but I pray God will be glorified through it.
Pray that I can help Adi grieve and find God’s purpose in this. I believe that this happened while we are here for a reason, so pray that this reaosn would be revealed. Thanks for the prayers
Adam
