I’m Tired of Too Many Accidents!

Dale & Bethsaba Nafziger – Nepal

PS 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

On Thursday, July 29 2004, the vehicle my wife Bethsaba and I were driving slipped on one of the hairpin curves ubiquitous throughout the Himalaya and five seconds later we were hanging from our seatbelts, upside down in a small stream in the middle of a ravine.  Less than one year later, on July 17 2005, I received a telephone call informing me that our company truck had gone over a retaining wall and plunged 300 ft to the river below, killing the driver and seriously injuring a company employee, Ram Kaji.

As our office manager Sunil and I returned from the accident scene later that day, the poorly maintained taxi we had chartered for the journey plunged into a culvert.  Sunil and I quickly rushed to a hospital emergency room for treatment—the same hospital where our colleague was admitted earlier in the day.  Needless to say, by bedtime, I felt like I had been through a washing machine “wringer”!  Before celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in Thailand this past January, Bethsaba and I had been warned about “Thai driving.”  Compared to Nepal; what we saw there was more like “school boys in shorts”—women leisurely driving scooters, using turn-signals when changing lanes…whew!  A quantum difference from the land where the loudest horn rules.  When I first came to Nepal, 25+ years ago, it seemed a bit unusual for people to stand up in church ask for prayer before departing on a bus journey.  Now, however, I rarely walk our children to the school bus stop in the morning, without whispering a prayer—when thinking about what the new day might potentially hold.  Oh God, you are indeed our refuge and our strength.

Dale Lee Nafziger, Global Ministries, Nepal