Sunday Collision with Horses on Road

We had a traumatic evening last night. On our way to the Bible Missionary Church in Elizabeth, just a mile from home in the darkness, some of us thought there seemed to be something ahead in the darkness. Coming closer, we saw more, and started screaming to Jonathan to stop. Three dark brown horses were out in the middle of the road, and Jonathan didn't see them before it was too late. He braked wildly and swerved suddenly, but our 12-passenger van hit one of them, and while the horse merely rolled over and got back up and ran off, our van was basically totalled–smashed hood and bumper and engine damage. Don't ask me how a horse could just run off and be okay while the van is smashed!

 

 I had to crawl out another door as mine wouldn’t open all the way. As we were surveying the damages and worrying about the horses, another vehicle came flying from the other direction. We watched in helpless horror as, at full speed, it hit not just one but two horses! It was then we realized the car and driver were out of control and heading right toward us! We were screaming and scattering in every direction, some right into the snow-packed ditches. Within seconds, that careening car was screeching across the middle line and ended up about 9 feet behind our van, right in the lane where several of us had been standing. Two horses were down at the side of the road, and the third was galloping all over the road whinnying anxiously. The Mercedes was smashed up badly, windshield shattered, air bags had deployed, the horn had shorted and was blasting a continuous, eerie blast to add to the melee. Later the sheriff found out that apparently someone had purposely opened all three gates to the horses’ corral while the owners were in Denver at the Stock Show that evening. What an awful thing to do! We all did what we could to stop two or three cars coming from both directions before more accidents happened. Praise God for sparing our lives from both death and injury! The other driver was okay except for a sore wrist. Praise God for sending His angels!

We spent about an hour and a quarter there by the road with our wrecked van and the other guy and his wrecked vehicle. Both horses were lost. A kind man used a long string Rose managed to find to get the third horse in tow, and the neighbors across the road allowed them to put the horse in their corral. The poor thing was whinnying for its companions. Hannah was sobbing and I was trying to comfort her. Fire trucks arrived, and an ambulance and the sheriff. The owners of the horses had to be contacted, the horses had to be dragged off the road. Sam was sweeping debris off the road with a shop broom from the fire truck.  Other neighbors arrived on the scene and talked to me. It was a very sweet couple whom my girls met at the Peyton Street Fair last summer. They were so glad no one was injured.

After filling out paperwork for the sheriff, we called Crystal who had stayed home sick, and she came to pick up some of us. Jonathan got his truck to take back and tow our van home.

All at the same time that this seemed like a terrible thing to happen, we've been needing a newer van anyway! This one has been so dependable for 10 years, but had 200,000 miles on it, was starting to give us trouble with the transmission, and the paint has been peeling for years, and last but not least, we had just noticed that afternoon that one tire was losing air!
The insurance company is supposed to come Wednesday to take the van to assess it. 

 Jonathan and I realized after it happened that Jonathan had just gotten his ticket for a Missions Help trip to Guatemala, and we can almost always expect a counter attack from the devil when we go on mission trips. Here is a picture of the church that the Weaver brothers' crew just finished laying block for there in Guatemala a week or two ago. It had been shared on Facebook.

This is the Sunday morning service last Sunday--without a roof! This church is on a steaming but dormant volcano, about 9000 feet altitude.

The pastor had come to the States to attend Bible College at Hobe Sound, but felt urgently to return and just get a church started. Twice the villagers stoned him, and left him for dead the last time. After months of recuperation, he came back a third time determined to start the church. Again the villagers thought to stone him, but realized that the last time they did so, he had come back alive!

They left him alone and now he has a church group!

This work has an amazing story! Pray for it! God wants to do a mighty work there 

and Satan does not like it.

 We almost always sustain a major attack from the enemy every time we reach out to help missions such as this.. But Jesus is always Victor! 

We had such an enjoyable walk Sunday afternoon in between church services of the day. 

The children wanted to take the dogs with us, too, so we did. 
We had no idea what the evening would hold.
Isn't God good to enable us to experience so much joy when we trust the future into His keeping?
There is no use worrying over tomorrow and thus become unable to experience joy today!

We feel the freedom to take nature walks on Sunday, based on Christ's statement,
"It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."
We do not feel, as the Puritans of old did, that children must sit silently studying catchism for hours of the Sabbath  afternoon, while the parents snooze.

I cannot imagine that forcing children to do things they hate on Sunday afternoon,
or leaving them bored and unhappy and poised to rebel,
is "doing good."

 After hours of sitting traveling to church and sitting through services and then traveling back home, it just seems that for young people an hour or two of a pleasant walk in the prairie or woods somewhere is a perfect way to spend some time Sunday afternoon.

We walked up to one of our favorite spots up by the windmill at the top of the bluffs.

The children and dogs found a bank of snow where they had a lot of fun.

We also walked up to what the children call the "outlook," where you can see for miles and miles.

It was such a happy afternoon.
God was good to us!
The Bible clearly talks about finding our delight in God on the Sabbath Day, and I can't imagine a better way for us New Testament Christians to find delight in God on the Lord's Day than to spend time in His creation with the family God has given us.

And just because we had a traumatic experience that evening doesn't make God less good
or mean that we should have spent the afternoon worrying, 
or mean that we did something wrong and God needed to punish us. 

Maybe in fact, we were doing some things totally right.
I read today a quote that said along these lines:
"Great trials are not necessarily a sign that someone is in great sin.
Instead, great trials may mean that God wants to show His great grace."
So we submit to His providence in our lives and know that all things work together for good
to us because we love God!