Benefit

While I was on vacation in Iowa last month, I received an email from one of the women in my small group from church. It told us that our small group leader, Kathi, had been hit by a drunk driver and she sustained life threatening injuries which included severe head trauma.

A lot of things go through your mind when you read something like this and my first thought was that she must have been driving somewhere late at night.

Unfortunately, she was on her bicycle training for a bike race that is taking place this very weekend and it was at 10:30 in the morning! That's right, in the morning... her and one of her friends, Kathy, were in training and were struck by a young woman who had leaned over to pick up her water bottle and drifted in to the bike lane.

It's such a sad story... here you think that you're going out for a couple hours worth of riding and then you don't come home.

Here is the link that was posted on the local news channel last month:

http://www.kcra.com/news/16667543/detail.html

A lot of healing has taken place since last month, but both women (and I should say the young woman who hit them, too) have been through so much since then. I couldn't imagine what would be going through her head, how her family is dealing with something like this, and what is going to happen to her in the upcoming trial.

On the flip side, you have two remarkable women who have been dealt a lot of physical injuries that will take months of rehabilitation and an even longer amount of time to pay off medical bills.

So tonight after church, my roommate and I went to Ernie's (a little cafe down the street from church) for a benefit that would give 50% of the proceeds towards these two women and their mounting bills. What a great cause! We had cheeseburgers, fries, and pop for a flat rate, but you could obviously give more to help out.

I love things like this... seeing people come out to help families in need. There is a small thread that connected all of us in that little room for a short period of time... a thread of love, a thread of giving, a thread of caring.

There was a gentleman taking pictures of everybody at their tables (Frank hates his picture being taken) to show the two women what was going on tonight once they are able to understand and grasp the magnitude of a stranger's love and what was going on in the "outside world". How awesome!

Here is a link to my friend's blog if you want to pray for her, see her progress, and read about how it all began... it's cool to see God answering SO many prayers and letting us be a part of their miracles. Each day gets better and there is so much hope in sight...

http://kathisturgeon.blogspot.com/

I didn't know the other Kathy, but 'our Kathi' always, always has a smile on her face and has such a great demeanor. One night I came in to small group with my Chicago Cubs t-shirt on and she came right over and wanted to know if I was from IL because nobody wears a Cubs t-shirt out here! We had a great talk about Iowa, our love for the Cubbies, how she moved out to Illinois and then came back to CA, etc. She is such a neat woman and I hope she can recover and move on from this quickly - I bet she'll have quite the stories to tell once she gets through all of this!

Please pray for all three women and their healing processes..