Wednesday afternoon while we were working on getting our car owners tax & insurance paid we were in an accident. In downtown Cap Haitien the streets are named by letters and numbers. The numbers go up and down and the letters go across...if you stand on a mountain and look down at the city it kind of looks like graph paper! Anyway, the numbered streets always have the right of way. When driving through town you know if you're on a number street you have the right of way, but you have to honk at every intersection to make sure that people know you're coming. When driving on the lettered street at each intersection you stop, honk, and if the coast is clear you pull through.
Frantzy and I were driving down street E. When we got to street 16 we stopped, honked, and inched forward to turn. As soon as we looked we stopped immediately to allow two little girls to cross the road. When we looked again we couldn't see anything because of a broken down SUV that was on the corner, so we inched forward a little bit more. I don't know exactly what happened after that. I just remember grabbing Frantzy's hand and there was an enormous box truck dragging us down the road. When our car finally let go and stopped and the box truck stopped we just sat there. We had no idea what had just happened. We called the police, our judge friend, our lawyer, our police friends...when you're in Haiti you have to have contacts, and we used everyone we had! Frantzy and I had neither one ever been in a car accident in Haiti before (nothing more than a fender bender) so we didn't know what to do. They took each of our stories. Everyone agreed that the person at fault was whoever had parked that SUV there. Everyone agreed that the box truck was traveling way to fast down those small city roads. And there was nothing we could do about the fact that the person who was actually at fault wasn't even there. After a lot of thinking and praying, we decided to drop the court case and charges and just pay for the repairs on our own. The owner of the other vehicle told us he'd never give us any money to repair, our insurance agency in Haiti didn't even have a camera to come out and take pictures so they definitely weren't going to give us money, and in Haiti people are killed for less than fighting for someone to pay for damages they did to your car. The police, judge, and our lawyer all agreed that the other guy should pay for the repairs, but because I'm white and we could have death threats for fighting for the repairs, they advised us to drop everything and just fix it on our own. The accident could have been SO much worse, we are so thankful we are safe and those two girls weren't run over by that truck!
The day after the accident while we were waiting for the trailer to come and pick up the car we saw almost the exact same accident happen in the same spot! All because of that broken down SUV. The police said that our accident isn't the first in that intersection and our lawyer asked him why they don't do anything about it and he just laughed it off and said it was too much of a hassle.
There are only about 15 parts that need replaced and many of them are plastic pieces. The biggest damage is a little bend in the frame and the steering box broke. God worked everything out perfectly, if we had to have an accident, this was the perfect timing! We have a container being loaded this week, so dad is out buying parts and putting them on the container AND our neighbors specialize in re-bending frames! We thought we were going to have to take the car to the Dominican Republic to get it repaired, but God has blessed us with enough mechanic friends that they've all volunteered to help us out!
When we spoke to our lawyer after the fact he said people were talking about how we carried ourselves after the accident. We didn't jump out of the car and start yelling and making a scene (which is what usually happens in Haiti...that's why you see so many people in the background of these pictures...they weren't even involved in the accident and they were standing around yelling and fighting about it!). People were talking about how we preach the Gospel as missionaries, but they really saw someone live it out and handle the accident in a way that was glorifying to God. They could see we were different. We were encouraged by that. So thankful God allowed us to be a testimony in the midst of a messy situation.
We understand an account has been set up for us at our sending church if anyone feels led to help pay for repairs and get our car back on the road. Thanks to all who started this account! And if you feel led to help...
Cornerstone Baptist Church
218 S. Bloomington St
Greencastle, IN 46135
memo: Frantzy & Jenny car repair
Bless you all! Thank you so much for all of the kind words, thoughts, and prayers this week! We are blessed by each and every one of you!
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