Tender Mercies...

What a week this has been. Tuesday morning at about 11:15 I received a call from Payton asking me to come and pick him up from football. I had just taken Brooks to Mindy's to play and headed down to the high school. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed a couple police cars and a bunch of football players out in the middle of the parking lot. It took me a second to notice the banged up jeep. I glanced around for Payton and my eyes fell on Hummer just a few yards from me. He was crouched down holding his head in his hands obviously distraught. My initial fear was that Payton and maybe someone I knew was in this jeep accident. Then Payton came walking slowly over to me with tears streaming down his face.

I think he was somewhat in shock as he could hardly tell me what was going on. He kept repeating one of the boy's names. I looked closer and could see two boys lying on the ground. I left the car and ran over to the accident. There were two paramedics working on one boy and I told them who I was and if I could help. They told me to check the other boy lying face down on the ground. By the time I got to him, he was talking. The ambulances arrived and we got him turned over, onto the back board and into the ambulance. He was okay.

At about this time, I looked around and really noticed all of the football players mulling around. All were in tears and some sobbing. Payton told me later that as soon as these players realized what had happened, they grabbed each others hands and fell to their knees in prayer.

The jeep had rolled. One boy (Brandon Curtis) had been pinned under the jeep, two were ejected and the driver was okay (physically--he was emotionally distraught to say the least).

Brandon was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He never gained consciousness and on Wednesday afternoon his family made the decision to pull off the life support. The community has been in mourning ever since. This boy was an amazing spiritual giant. Our prayers are with the Curtis family and also for the Cook family (Kaleb Cook was the driver).

Also on Wednesday, we had planned to head to Lake Powell for our annual trip with the Ollertons and Murdocks. They left the day before. We decided to keep the trip and also invited Hummer and Karson.

We were just about to Panguitch (about 5 miles away) when the truck (we borrowed Jeff's diesel) stopped on us. We were out of gas. We pulled off the road onto a little parking area. Greg was very frustrated with himself and was trying to decide what to do. I know we were all saying a little prayer in our hearts. After about 10 minutes and Greg deciding to hitch hike, a large truck pulling a trailer pulled in bedside us. We looked over and believe it or not, in the back of this truck was a diesel fuel pump. Greg walked over to the guy and asked him if he could buy some gas from him. The guy looked astonished. He said,"Did you run out of gas? And you need diesel fuel?" "How lucky can you get?" He had a 30 foot hose and filled our tank 3/4 full. He also had some starter fluid and after several attempts to start, the truck roared to life. We drove into Panguitch and filled the rest of the tank. We had no trouble the rest of the trip.

I believe this man was an angel sent from the Lord! The boys think Brandon had something to do with it. Either way, we experienced one of the Lord's tender mercies in our behalf.