Written a few hours after the accident in the emergency waiting room:
It’s like a scene from a movie… But I was there, living and breathing in the scene… Nothing I ever thought I would experience so vividly. Feeling the heat of India as I run to the mob, ignoring the beggar with her hand out pleading for money, in awe of the beautiful rock outcropping to my right, smelling the trees and brush on the side of the road. There’s no car in sight, so this couldn’t possibly be a mob concerning my friends accident, besides it was only a fender bender or a faulty engine that we were turning back for… But then why the big crowd and why the urgency in the mans voice as he called us toward the mob? As I near, there is still no car… On the road… Looking to the left through the trees I see what appears to be junk yard scrap metal… The crushed remains of the van that was driving my friends, my squad mates, the people I was just throwing crackers and bananas at monkeys with on top of a mountain in India. The friends who I met at 3:30 in the morning with to escape the city and watch a sunrise in the Indian countryside. My heart sunk as I continued to jog towards the mob. What could lie in the middle of that mob? As I squeeze through the crowd of people, 3 friendly faces appear, yet with tattered clothing with bloodstains and shocked and dazed expressions. Not the expressions of pure excitement and wonder we had at the monkeys only 20 minutes prior.
I had never experienced this before. Never been so close to an accident with people I loved so dearly with such potentially fatal results. There was nothing to do but grab a hand of a loved one suffering on the side of the road and pray. Pray for a miracle. Another miracle, as it had already been a miracle that all of the bodies escaped that wreck with full consciousness. Suddenly life became so precious. So much more than the Indian cuisine I was going to grab on the side of the road on the way home, so much more than the karanboard game I was going to play with the men at ministry that afternoon, so much more than my Bollywood dancing lesson that night, and so much more than even my upcoming journey to Nepal in less than 6 days. Life became very fragile, very temporary, and very uncertain. We are all young, and able bodied, and on the craziest journey with Christ we could be on, but still never promised our next breath. How important then is it that we live every day to its fullest potential never giving up a single moment, allowing ourselves to serve our Lord in anyway we can. Because years from now into eternity it won’t matter that I ate some Indian street food or learned to Bollywood dance. Live to impact His Kingdom and further it everyday and enjoy every moment of life as a gift from our Heavenly Father.
All of my friends are alive and well thanks to Gods graciousness, but some are sustaining some serious injuries. From this I have learned to fully cherish every moment spent with these wonderful squad mates I have and found a true love for each one of them. This experience brought about strong emotions of deep caring and love that I hadn’t felt in many years. This year is an incredible gift I have to meet such passionate people and learn from them and grow alongside them through the best of times and hardest times. As mentioned above, it also gives me an incredible respect for the life given to me and a perspective on our stewardship of this temporary existence. Any one of us could have been in that car and a look at the damages suggests fatalities. But God protected us and we have to trust His will through the pain of our teams injuries.
