Accident Forgiveness

I want to share another hopeful but also sad story that has happened to the church here recently. Last year they sent an evangelist to a new place, a large village that is the “county seat” of its area, hoping that the Good News would make an impact there. Pastor Nagari was a very experienced evangelists who has been a spiritual mentor to many, so there were high hopes for what could happen in this area. In fact, the church had funds to buy a motorcycle to help facilitate the travel of a few evangelists, and chose him as a strategic person in a strategic place. 

There were some other arrows pointing upwards in Pastor Nagari’s story, one being that a new water initiative by the church was going to start in his area by gathering community members to hand drill shallow wells for each other at low cost, which they could then use for irrigation and other income generating activities. A second, that Pastor Nagari had decided to take a year advance on the small stipend he had been promised by the national church, and to use it to start his own business so that he wouldn’t have to look for a salary from the church in the future. This medicine selling business (in a place where there’s no regularly stocked pharmacy) could be a good model for other evangelists in the country, as many find that their stipends eventually dry up or whomever promised them is not able to follow through. Pastor Nagari had been through the CHE training a year ago, although he was not someone that we were actively mentoring to apply the methods.

Unfortunately, Pastor Nagari died from injuries from a motorcycle accident two weeks ago. As so commonly happens here, there was a motorcycle pulling out onto the dirt road from a side path in the millet fields, and they didn’t look to see if there was anyone already coming on the dirt road. Pastor Nagari was riding on the back while a youth drove his new motorcycle and was knocked off by the one entering the road. The other motorcyclist sped off without checking what happened. Pastor Nagari was able to get up and return home. But he wasn’t wearing a helmet (like 95% of people here), and continued to have really bad pain in his head. Even though he was taken to the regional hospital a few hours away, there was nothing they could do and he died a few days later. 

The hopeful news is that the other motorcyclist came to Pastor Nagari’s house a few days after he died to admit that he was the one who caused the accident and accept whatever consequences. Here you can be sent to prison simply for leaving the scene of an accident, so this was a big move. The man said he didn’t have peace and knew he must come forward. The family and the regional church leaders decided not to take him to the police or demand reparations from him, but instead to offer forgiveness and acceptance. We don’t know the end of the story yet, but the family hopes that this will be medicine for the man’s conflicted soul and will open him up further to the power of the Gospel. They are even praying that this man will become the next evangelists for the village!

-- El Padre