Article wrttten by
David Eden
for
The Wylie News
"Good News" Editorial Section

Photos from the internet

It’s a sunny summer morning.
It’s Monday, and you’re getting ready for your workday.
Casually watching the morning news…
Out of the corner of your eye you see it…
You see the horrifying footage of a bus that seems
to have slammed head-on into an overpass pillar. 
You notice the side of the bus peeled back
as if with a can opener.
And you wonder what poor people were involved
and who could ever have survived such a crash. 

Then the reporter says the bus was a full of teenagers…
It was a church bus with kids traveling to summer camp.
And you realize… oh no!…
that it’s your church…   that it’s your youth group…
that your own children are on that bus to camp! 
Fear and faith battle inside you
as you drop to your knees by the TV…   and cry out…
to the only One who can help in a time like this.

Praise God for cell phones. You quickly call pastors and chaperones on the scene, desperate for any info about the accident and especially your kids.  You breathe a thankful sigh to God as you find out that your three teens are OK. 

But many teenagers are severely injured and some may have lost their lives. You can’t help but think: “Oh God! Where were you? Oh God, Where are you?” And then you hear His urgent but gentle voice saying: “I’m right here.  Now let’s get to work.”

We as a church grieved with and prayed for the families of Amanda, Lindsay, Michael, Michelle and Mr. Carter the driver.  We were so thankful to all those who opened up their hearts and hands to our church and these homes that fateful summer. We still pray for God’s continued healing, in body and soul, of those courageous families. Most of the thirty who were rushed to hospitals are whole today; a few still have lasting injuries.

I’m so grateful to God for sparing our 3 kids. But why did our kids decide at the last minute they wanted to ride on the other bus?!  Why were certain ones sitting in those certain, fatal seats?! Why…

We now have the reports of those first 48 hours after the crash. What stories of heartbreak, heroism, miracles and ministry have emerged.  Some of the kids had been sleeping, some playing cards, chatting away, even changing seats, when they were suddenly thrown into a world of pain and terror. 

The bus begins shaking. No one has time to realize they are hitting against the guard rail. Then, in an instant, the bus hits the pillar, tears in two and explodes to a stop. Some of the kids are painfully, some miraculously, catapulted out the open front. Some are still trapped inside.

Chaperones from accompanying vehicles have seen the accident and quickly get to crash site.  As they arrive, they are confronted with their worst nightmare: wounded kids on the ground or in the bus, some still riveted to their seats in shock. 

With no time to think or fear, they start pulling students to safety.  They will soon discover that four teens and the driver will not make it. After a few eternal minutes, unknown heroes and professionals--God’s angels--converge on the war scene of ambulances, care-flight helicopters and mayhem.

A truck driver is early on the scene. Kids remember his gentle manner as he pulls them to safety. 

A chaperone, who’d been thrown to the grass unconscious, wakes up beside a girl who’s bleeding from her head.  He grabs a pillow and presses it to the wound, crying out to God until help arrives. 
Another Chaperone holds a girl in his arms praying and calling for doctors. 

A boy who was thrown to safety goes back to pull others out, cutting up his shirt & jeans as tourniquets.  A girl in a daze begins helping others out of the bus, only to find later that her own back had been broken. 

Chaperones from the other bus soon arrive and begin working with EMT personnel and passersby to save countless lives.  They must quickly pull teens from a ditch flooded with diesel fuel. 

Dozens of kids are flown to area hospitals with shattered bones, needing reconstructed hips, arms, legs, treatment for head injuries, burns, external and internal lacerations.  One boy will remain unconscious for weeks while doctors repair what they can.  Another boy will be pronounced dead three times before he begins to pull through. Parents run to hospitals to cry and pray through painful days of x-rays, surgeries and miracles.  And in those hospital rooms… God shows up.
    
The aftermath has been nothing short of amazing. How does tragedy bring out such love in us? Our church rallied with other churches to co-ordinate the massive work of ministry to stricken families. The Christian community, the wonderful Body of Christ, just exploded with compassion!  Christians came out of the woodwork! Thousands of loving e-mails & phone calls, hundreds of visitors, all saying:
          “We love you. We’re praying. How can we help?”

They begin bringing food, running errands, helping counsel, caring for children! Grocery stores, flower shops, rental companies, TV and radio stations, schools, hotels, the Red Cross, local law enforcement all are stepping up to give what is needed. 

Youth groups come by just to pray at our altar or to help clean up or just drop off a homemade banner of encouragement they’d made. We see a need, then out of the blue, someone is there to meet it!  A little girl wants to give her birthday money to buy some needed paper goods. Suddenly, at that moment, a whole truckload of paper goods arrives!  Touching scenes like this are repeated hourly.  Even the media crews seem so sensitive! They see their job-- their need to broadcast accurate stories, to respect privacy and to let us tell God’s story.  
    
The various services look like wartime funerals!—with battered teens, in wheel chairs, in casts, limping in on crutches to mourn their friends’ home-going.  Hundreds of visitors come to offer their condolences.  But there is such a sweet presence of God in the sorrow, as the mercies of Jesus and His love are felt and proclaimed. Tears fill our eyes as we sing together--
                                  
I can only imagine…

Funeral processions stretch for miles! The four teens who died had vibrant relationships with Jesus. A woman hearing a bereaved mom’s testimony, said: “I want what she has.”--And she gives her life to Christ. Not only in these services, but in e-mails from around the nation, we hear of people, young and old, committing their lives to Christ.  And so it was…

Only the cross heals…Only the horror of what took place on that blood-stained cross can heal the horror of what took place on that blood-stained highway. Only the Savior’s suffering and scars can heal ours, and turn our wounds into worship.

And with His stripes, we are healed.

Still today, four small, makeshift crosses mark that hollowed site on I-20. But the scars on young bodies and the new grace in shattered hearts mark the day when a bus trip brought Heaven near and we glimpsed eternity.