My wife started a rumor that I said I didn’t need Foundations Class, a 9-week spiritual experience they offer at Irving Bible Church (IBC), where we’ve been attending the last 20 something years. I don’t know if I said those exact words but I might have said something about that I was already doing Bible reading and prayers most mornings and was pretty content in the rut I was stuck in.
Wanting to show some effort in being the spiritual leader of our family, something my wife loves for me to do but which is also an area where I know she’s been disappointed for the last 25 years of our marriage, I mentioned that we should sign up for the Spring Foundations class when it was announced in church. She signed us up immediately, as if they were offering free Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos for life to the first 10 people to sign up. I started to mentally prepare myself for the experience which would include nine Sunday afternoon trips back up to the church. Thankfully the class wouldn’t interfere with my Sunday afternoon naps which I find are becoming more and more of a necessity for spiritual, mental, and physical wholeness.
The first meeting was on a beautiful, calm, sunny, and warm early-Spring afternoon. We drove to church on our normal route, west on Beltline towards Denton Tap in Coppell. We came up on a few cars stopped in the middle of the road and could see a motorcycle on its side and a few people standing in the grassy median. I stopped our truck and got out to see the motorcyclist face down, bleeding profusely and an older gentleman in glasses trying to hold the rider’s head up enough so he could breathe.
I remember a young woman on a cell phone yelling, “They said not to move him!” And then the older gentleman in glasses that was holding the rider exclaiming “If we don’t move him he’s going to drown in his own blood!” The rider was a big guy and I thought I’d need to use his belt to help move him but the consensus, influenced by the remote voice on the other end of the phone, was not to turn him. The older gentlemen with glasses continued to hold the rider’s head up so he could breathe. It was a chaotic scene and the young woman gave me the phone for a reason I don’t recall and I was now the link to the 911 operator. All along I was saying silent prayers that the rider would live through this but he was bleeding so profusely and then he convulsed once and after that I thought he probably either just died or wouldn’t live for long.
The firemen and ambulance arrived and the 911 operator said I could hang up so I pressed “cancel” on the phone and closed the phone’s black leather case and held up it and started asking “who’s phone is this?”. One young man pointed in the direction of the older gentleman with glasses who had been holding the rider’s head up.
I looked up and saw my truck in the middle of the road blocking traffic and motioned for my wife to move it out of the way. Since I didn’t see the accident and my truck was blocking the street, I got in my truck and drove us to Foundation class at IBC feeling pretty shaken up. I’ve had very little experience with critical injuries and much less with life and death situations.
The atmosphere at the church when we arrived was electric – you can sense the enthusiasm about the start of Foundations. I was directed to Table 16 and sat there in the midst of hundreds of others that were about to start on their Foundation journey..
At table 16, I met Benny, a survivor that Andy McQuitty, our former pastor, mentions in his book, “The way to Brave”. I also met Jeff who built the cross that hangs over the stage in the sanctuary. Also Ryder, a neighbor of ours who I’ve met before but didn’t know much about. And Al, a sweet transplant from NYC via Los Angeles, and Grayson, our Foundations table leader that has the gift of facilitation.
I introduced myself to the men at Table 16, still shaken up from the accident, but didn’t say anything about it. I figured there’d be time later. That’s when I noticed there was a Foundation manual and empty chair next to me, room enough for one more person at our table.
There were a few announcements from the stage and then we started some additional table discussions when the older gentleman with glasses from the motorcycle accident slipped in quietly to the empty seat next to mine and he set his cell phone with the black leather case on the table – the same cell phone I was just on with the 911 operator less than an hour ago.
He looked even more shaken up than I felt. Since someone else from the stage was speaking, I made a gesture like I was twisting the throttle on a motorcycle. He asked me if I was there too. That’s how I met the last man at Table 16, Henry Ransom. We ended up sharing the story with the Table 16 and I mentioned if the rider lives that Henry would be hero for holding the rider’s head up so he could breathe.
I asked Henry if he knew if the rider had survived and Henry said it didn’t look good, that the rider’s breathing really had slowed. He said that he had stuck around and gave the police and report and then came to the Foundations class. It wasn’t until Henry drove back home that evening and stopped again to speak with the police investigators that he found out the rider had died at the scene of the accident.
Henry and I met a few days later at IBC, hoping to find the family to send prayers and condolences. Henry had also invited Das, a man from Bangladesh that also had stopped to render aid to the rider. While we were sitting there at the church, Henry called 911 from his cell phone to find out the family’s name. I was impressed at his initiative. And I was even more impressed that they didn’t send the police to cart us away for calling 911 for non-emergencies. Henry is a globe-trotting missionary so it seems like operators on the other end of the call knew this somehow since all of them were very helpful and concerned, but of course didn’t give us any additional information.
That’s when Henry had the idea to put a note on the cross he had noticed the rider’s family had put in the median where the accident happened. Henry was traveling out the country so I put a note in the plastic bag hoping the family would contact me if they wanted to. All of us just wanted to let the family know we had been praying for them and also that their loved one wasn’t alone during his last minutes on the earth.
The family did contact us back and we have a meeting setup with them this week. Henry was a witness to what happened – basically the rider lost control around a curve. Before we met, the family had texted us that they believe their loved one had a heart attack since he had heart surgery recently and that he was a very experienced rider. So the rider losing control around a curve after suffering a heart attack makes sense.
I’m really deeply sorry for the family losing their loved one. I’m still trying to process the events of the first day of Foundations class and meeting Henry at Table 16 after both of us were at the accident scene. The Foundations curriculum is pointing us to be missionary disciples, prayerfully looking where we can love our neighbors. One of the daily readings from Foundations was from Mark 6:1-13 when Jesus sends out his disciples “two by two”. Meeting Henry at Foundations class was either an amazing coincidence or God has bigger plans. Stay tuned . . .