This past January is the two-year anniversary of sorts for Erika. It will bring back painful memories for her but God brought about something wonderful through her near death, and through the real death of a beloved friend of many in our AFLC last May.
I met Erika the day I opened a checking account at the bank in which she worked. She had an extremely difficult time getting my name spelled correctly and I had to stop her several times to change the information she had put into her computer. A few weeks later I met her brother-in-law at a 10K race in which we were running. Erika, her Kindergarten-aged daughter, her brother-in-law and several sisters began coming to our English classes and God opened doors to get to know them much more over the next couple of years.
On a rainy January day two years ago, Erika was heading to work at the bank in a city about 45 minutes away where she had recently been transferred. The rain was heavy and the roads were slick as she made the commute down the curvy two-lane highway that would bring her to Fresnillo and her new job. As she zipped down the road the tires of her car suddenly began hydroplaning and she skidded off the road, flew over a steep embankment and down into a ravine, crashing into the foot of the bridge she was about to cross. No one saw it happen and no one passing by saw her from the road.
With massive injuries, she lay unseen on top of the steering wheel with the tail end of the car pointing in the air. After what seemed like an eternity, a highway patrol car finally spotted her vehicle down at the bottom of the embankment. Help arrived but everyone thought it was too late. She had lost a lot of blood, had significant trauma to the head and was paralyzed on one side of her body. No one expected her to live. But God had other plans . . . and she did.
When Erika finally got out of the hospital Dan Giles and I went to visit her at her mother’s home. Her speech was badly slurred, and she was still purple all over. Everyone tried to encourage her that God must have some special plan for her life because she should have died. It was to that end that Dan and I prayed with her. And we enlisted the help of other intercessors as well.
One of those from the United States who committed to pray for Erika shared that she felt compelled to intercede for the injured woman because she had a daughter named Erika and she also had a daughter who had nearly died from a horrible car accident of her own . . . her name was Jeannie Brandt.
I shared that information with Erika and it was a great encouragement to her and moved her deeply. I continued to remind her of the fact that Jeannie was praying for her and that everyone had said God must have a plan for her. Jeannie’s prayers meant a lot to Erika through the long recovery process. And so when I shared with Erika the news that Jeannie herself was having a difficult battle with cancer, Erika took it very personally and made sure that I passed on her concern and care as well. When, a few months later, I told Erika that Jeannie had died and was with the Lord, she was grieved. That this wonderful woman whom she had never met, whose prayers had meant so much to her, had herself passed-away had a deep impact on her. But I was also able to share much more. Thanks to Pastor Brandt’s very personal letters of his and Jeannie’s walk together with the Lord through those last months of her life, I was also able to share of the confidence and joy with which Jeannie faced her own imminent death because of her Savior who had already triumphed over death and the assurance that she had of Jesus’ love for her. And I reminded Erika that everyone had told her that God must have a special plan for her life.
In November, Dan and I went to visit Erika again. We gave her a copy of the book, “The Purpose Driven Life” in Spanish with a dedication to Jeannie Brandt on the inside cover and we talked about Jeannie’s faith with her. Erika was eager to listen.
As Dan shared passages from the Scriptures about the way of salvation, she would interrupt with, ‘Yes, but how can I know for sure that I’m going to heaven?’ I smiled as Dan patiently responded several times with ‘We’re getting there.’ So when he did get there, Erika eagerly prayed and received Jeannie’s Jesus as her own. I smiled again as she said, ‘You know this may sound strange but I really feel like something just happened inside me. It’s hard to explain but I feel different.’ We just smiled, knowingly.
Thank you for your prayers. They really do count for eternity.
Todd, Barb, Rachel, Megan and Kirstie Schierkolk
