Friends In A Car Accident

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
i joined the facebook group.

[Old_Joe]

[quote name='missionseeker' post='1728117' date='Dec 15 2008, 02:25 AM']

(Old_Joe, do you know Father James Dean by any chance? He a chaplain for FOCUS i think.)[/quote]

no, but I like the sausage though. I'm not sure about the actor.

some good news. They've taken Ashley off of the sedatives and she is awake! She can open her right eye, but the left eye is swollen shut. She is able move different parts of her body, which is good because they were worried about her mobility being affected. She's responding to the people around her. It seems like the wait is over, but there's still a long way too go.

Edited December 15, 2008 by Old_Joe

[prose]

That isn't good news, that is great news!!

Prayers still coming!

[Brigid]

Andrea is the niece of one of my mom's friends, so I heard about this pretty soon after it happened. I'm so glad they're all alive and somewhat okay! the power of prayer is awesome.

my parents also know Fr. Matya, since they went to UNL and were really involved in the Newman Center. they were both very relieved to hear that he wasn't in the accident.

[Old_Joe]

Day 22:

Well, I finally went up to Omaha to visit Ashley (the rest of the women in the accident were discharged from the hospital). She's still in the ICU at the medical center. Ashley recently had facial surgery to reconstruct her facial bones. Her face is pretty swollen, almost unrecognizable, but she is doing much better than she looks. She has been up to walk and sit in a recliner several times. However, she is still in a lot of pain, her limbs shake whenever she tries to move them and has not gotten much rest in the past 48 hours. If you'd like to pray for something specific, pray for God's healing grace to help for one of those problems.

Her fiancee Brad is very good friend of mine and has been with her and her family throughout the past three weeks. I was not surprised at this, but to actually see him sitting next to Ashley, attentive to her needs, holding her hand, etc. is a tremendous testament to his strength of character.

Keep praying for her and her family.

[url="http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ashleyhaas"]Ashley Haas[/url]

[Old_Joe]

This was on the front page of the campus newspaper:

[quote]FOCUS missionaries' car crash spurs international support

Andrea Vasquez

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Published: Monday, January 12, 2009

Updated: Monday, January 12, 2009
Car crash

Dozens rushed to the University of Nebraska Medical Center to bring food and comfort, while thousands around the country made calls to spread prayers.

This all happened within an hour of the automobile accident involving a car and a large truck near Highway 6 and the Platte River in Nebraska.

Tanya Cenac, Brigid Patino, Andrea Fulcher, Kristin Smith and Ashley Haas, five missionaries for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) at the Newman Center, were in the car. On Dec. 12, they were on their way to a staff retreat at a cabin near Gretna when a truck behind them crashed into their car.

The truck driver immediately called 911 and went to the car to check on the women. He applied pressure to stop the bleeding on a cut on Haas’s chin and kept her alive. An ROTC medic who was driving by the scene stopped and took over for the truck driver until the paramedics arrived.

“Everybody on the scene almost took on different roles,” said Nikki Shasserre, assistant director for annual giving at the Newman Center, who was in another car behind the women. “Father (Robert) Matya and Jude Werner (from the Newman Center) ran to the car and were there with the girls, talking with them, praying with them (and) just being there to try to comfort them.”

The women, two of whom were airlifted, were all taken to the same hospital, making it easier for family and friends to visit and comfort them.

“It was beautiful,” said Jim Jansen, a team director for FOCUS missionaries who worked with the women. “Within an hour, there must’ve been 30 plus people in the emergency (room) who were there to pray and bringing food and bringing cell phone chargers and just doing anything they could.”

Almost immediately after the accident, the airwaves were saturated with phone calls for a prayer chain that spanned multiple continents.

“Literally, we have had people all over the country and all over the world — Rome, Spain, Paris — that have been praying,” Shasserre said.

Back in Lincoln, supporters gathered at the Newman Center for a prayer vigil that same day.

As FOCUS missionaries, the women hold Bible studies and work with students as outreach for the Newman Center at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. FOCUS is a national organization, and within an hour of the accident, the support community for the women’s recovery stretched from UNL students to people in other chapters around the country. A Facebook group, “Prayers for the Women FOCUS Missionaries of UNL,” now has more than 2,500 members.

“At the same time, we were scared and saddened; there was an unbelievable sense of God’s closeness that made it possible for us to trust and hope and wait to hear as the updates started to come,” Jansen said.

The day of the accident coincided with the Catholic feast day to honor the Lady of Guadalupe, or Mary, the mother of Jesus. The celebration also offered some comfort.

“Knowing that Our Heavenly Mother was also there — that comfort that only a mother can bring — also gave us a feeling of peace and consolation,” Shasserre said.

Four of the women recovered enough to spend Winter Break at home with their families, while Haas has remained in the hospital in constant care. She has made miraculous progress, Jansen said, and was moved out of the Intensive Care Unit last week and will soon go to a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta. Cenac, Patino, Fulcher and Smith will return to UNL to start work again in about a week.

Friends, family and members of the prayer chain and Facebook group have been keeping track of Haas’s recovery online at www.caringbridge.org/visit/ashleyhaas. There is also a fund open for donations through Union Bank.

Jansen is thankful for the wide support for the women and their well-being. He said he believes he has prayer and God to thank for much of it.

“Frankly, it’s God,” he said. “It was a carload of five missionaries headed to a working retreat, and it was on a big feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It’s the fact that God intervened to protect them, and there were literally thousands of people praying for them.”[/quote]

[url="http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/focus_missionaries_car_crash_spurs_international_support"]link[/url]

according to the caring bridge website, ashley has made a huge strides (literally and figuratively) She able to walk, and has even begun to swallow and talk.

Edited January 12, 2009 by Old_Joe

[littlesister]

Thank you. We'll keep praying.