The Porter Family

A Terrible Accidents and outcomes

Yesterday afternoon, we struck a pedestrian in the middle of the highway. Here is a quick report and request for prayer.

For some time now, I’ve needed to make a trip up to Mwanza, Tanzania for a few different reasons. I have an idea for a project to help the persecuted Albinos in Tanzania and I wanted to check on its feasibility. We wanted to visit friends, including Tim and Joyce Jarvis and Geoffrey Lugwisha, pastor of KVCC. Finally, I wanted to connect with John Cottey, a church planter from the UK looking at planting a similar church that what we are trying to do at the Ocean. This time I decided to take the family.

We finished the 15 hour trip Thursday at noon, just in time for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. Friday, I did some work on the project (which I’ll talk about another time), Saturday met with the church planter from the UK, and Sunday spoke at his campus, then connected with Geoffrey. We left Mwanza at 8 am Monday morning.

Around 2:30 PM, we were south of Singida, Tanzania, just past the little village of PUMA. Tahnya was driving and came up over a hill and began to go down. A young man was in the road, and not looking our direction. It appeared like he was waiting for a bus to go by. Either the bus was slower then expected, or the wind force of the bus passing pushed him back towards us. Tahnya swerved but was not able to miss him.

We thought that surely he was dead, we stopped and ran back. He was alive but with a badly injured leg. The onlookers told us he had been drinking. We put him in the truck and headed back into town. We stopped to pick up a policeman along the way and ran down to the local catholic hospital. It appears to be a very clean, very well run place. A German lady doctor immediately took charge of him.

We then began the process with the police. We returned to the scene of the accident and described what happened. They did a drawing. We returned to the hospital to check on the young man, then were taken back to Singida, 20 Km away, to the main police station. There, we had to fill out a report. By this time, we were connecting with some local believers including the local district superintendent (bishop) who has one of the local inspectors in his church. Our friends in Dar Es Salaam also began to work their end. We were released into their custody for the night and told to return in the morning. A very sleepless night followed for Tahnya and I.

This morning, we spend 2 hours again at the police station. Finally, the station chief agreed to release us for 7 days, pending how the young man does in surgery. So we got back in the car and returned to the hospital to check on him. He is alive but his leg is very busted up. They will operate in the morning on him.

Please pray for a miracle for this young man. His life and ability to work in the future truly hangs in the balance. He needs your prayers.

Tahnya needs your prayers. She was pretty shook up, as was I. We will let you know as the situation progresses if they will take us to court and if so, what will happen.