What a Night!

Yesterday afternoon, 3 Santa Maria teenagers died in a car accident. For some reason, the hospital sent people to our church as a place to go for help/counseling after the news broke last night. As "luck" would have it, the youth group adult leadership team was meeting all together at a nearby home last night, and we were called to come to the church to help deal with the distraught teens. A lot more students than we had expected had gathered in the fellowship hall, and surprisingly, I hardly knew any of them - most of them weren't from our youth group, but they still came to FCC as advised.

It was quite an interesting evening; some of the kids refused to come into the sanctuary and some just stayed in their little groups. But we were encouraged to go around and talk to, or pray for, whoever was willing to open up to us. I have to say, about a year ago, this would have been an extremely intimidating task for me and I would have been super nervous about it. But I prayed with several different groups of students last night and I hardly gave it a second thought. It was cool to see them talking and crying through their feelings, even to people they barely knew, and I felt so bad for what they were going through. It happened so suddenly. I guess 4 guys were driving around 100 mph (on a 45 mph road) right after the first rain we've had in a while. They lost control and hit a lightpost, and the car was literally sliced in half. One of the guys walked away with just a sprained ankle while 2 were killed instantly and the other died later at the hospital. Tonight was supposed to be our youth Christmas party, but I'm not sure what the mood will be like. I think we're planning on having a separate room available for students who want to talk or pray, while the party will probably go on for those not really affected by this accident (i.e. they didn't know the kids who were killed.)

Anyway, it was a pretty long night last night, and a pretty cool "coincidence" that all the youth leaders happened to be in the same place when it all happened! I hope God can use this as a wake-up call to our students that there is no guarantee of how long you have on earth, so make the most of the time you do have!

In other news, I have a second interview at a TV station next Monday. Seriously, don't ask me why I haven't found a job yet. It's depressing - believe me, I know. But since I am coming home for Christmas, I haven't even looked into the idea of retail because they'd never hire me at this time of year without being available to work that entire week. I guess I'll get more desperate come the new year if I'm still unemployed. I keep thinking of all the money I'm missing out on, and it truly is depressing. But Jason is so supportive and understanding, and a lot of people I talk to say they've never seen a city in which it is so hard to find a job as it is in Santa Maria. Just my luck ;)