Our Guardians Angels are working overtime!

So, I'm driving home from Pizza Night at our good friends', the Brobergs, home. I am following Steve because we had to take two cars.

Here in Russia we have round-abouts often where, in America, you would have a simple intersection and a street light. So, as I was entering one of these round-abouts, a semi decided that he owned the road and kept squeezing me off of it. As a result, I ran along the curb which consequently slashed both of my tires on the left side.

I pulled over just as soon as I could after getting out of the round-about and sat parked (in the Honda minivan) off the road in front of a car wash and called Steve for help.

He turned around and came to my rescue (in the Toyota Land Cruiser). Parking directly behind me about 10 feet, he helped me get the spare and started to remove the lug nuts.

Just then, a security guard in a Lada (a tin can of a Russian made car) slammed into the back of our Toyota. This is what it looked like.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background information. These cars belong to our organization. The Honda was given to us to use and the Toyota is in our keeping while it is being sold. After all this, we are pretty convinced that we would rather own the Toyota than the minivan. This is the second time the Lord has used it to stop the crazy drivers from hurting us. Though Steve and I were standing only feet from the accident and we each had two kids in our cars,

no Hayes was hurt!

The driver and his passenger went off in the Skora Pamotch (Ambulance). Do you see where the hood is piercing the windshield? It also pierced the passenger's nose. The driver hit his chest on the steering wheel at full force.

The perils of driving drunk...

By the way, Skora Pamotch means "help soon", but our friend, Jen, made it to us before they did and took our kids home with her. It took the medical professionals about 20 minutes.

This is where I was standing at impact... except just before the accident I had the Honda right beside me. You see, when the Lada hit the Toyota, it lurched 10 feet and hit the Honda which also lurched 10 feet. The road the Lada should have been on is actually not seen to the right of this photo. It is amazing that he hit the car and not me or Steve. Though, only 5 minutes before, we were between the cars and Steve was in a precarious position trying to remove the spare tire which could have resulted in serious injury, even death when our two cars hit each other. The scenarios are endless and we are just so grateful to be safe.

The first person Steve called was our pastor, Marat (in the red jacket). Considering this happened at 1am, we were so grateful that he immediately came and even brought a friend. We could not have done all that we had to do in the next 4 hours without them.

The police showed up after about 30 minutes, looked over everything and then started to leave. We asked them where they were going and they said that a pedestrian had been hit and killed and they were the only police for our region and that time of night.

So, after about an hour, they returned and we measured everything and answered their questions until about 3:30am. Then they left and told us to meet them at their office.

We then proceeded to try to remove the offending car from our Toyota bumper, which proved to be a little harder than expected. He had really driven it up under there!

The whole ordeal finally concluded around 5:30am, though in reality, it is just the beginning! Now we deal with insurance companies and mechanics, though I will take that over doctors and hospitals any day!