On Monday 5^th July, there was a serious road accident in Jalalpa, very near to the Community Center. The main street, which provides access to the Jalalpa community, makes a blind curve on a steep slope just below the turning to the Community Center. It's the main bus route out of Jalalpa and a notoriously dangerous stretch of road.

This Monday, a full bus was making its descent, driven by a very young driver at dangerously high speed with music blaring. The driver momentarily lost control and crashed into the wall on the left side of the road, turning the bus over onto its side. Passengers who were standing in the doorway of the bus were flung from the vehicle as it toppled over and the bus landed on top of them, trapping the other passengers, including many children, inside. Shocked onlookers and neighbors rushed to the site and the street became full of hysterical parents wanting to check that their children weren't on the bus, as well as many trying to rescue the trapped passengers.

A small boy witnessed the accident and rushed to the Armonia center to tell them what had happened, and Saul Cruz and members of the Transformation course in Jalalpa immediately ran to the scene to help. Some of them helped to rescue injured passengers from the bus while others formed a circle around the accident so the helpers had space in which to work.

It was a horrendous sight. The bus had landed on the side which has the doors, so the only way to gain access to the trapped passengers was to break the front and back windows, and to try to gain access through the small roof ventilation windows. With many passengers bleeding seriously, and hysteria and panic amongst onlookers and other members of the community, it was an awful situation. Somehow, the driver had survived the crash and managed to escape before he could be held to account.

Ambulances were called; when they did eventually fight their way up the precipitous streets through the crowds that had gathered, they were woefully ill-equipped to deal with such a situation. Splints were made from cardboard and wooden boxes, and bandages from sheets of nearby houses, along with makeshift stretchers to compensate for the lack of medical supplies. When they thought everyone was being tended to, someone came to Saul to tell him there were a couple of injured people who had managed to get to their home nearby - one of them was a small boy sitting frozen upright, not making a sound unless someone touched him or tried to move him, at which point he would scream horribly. He seemed to have some kind of neck injury and needed a neck-brace and a stretcher. It took nearly half an hour to find a neck-brace that could fit such a small child and to fashion another stretcher for the boy, but finally they were able to carry him and his companion out to receive further treatment.

Eventually all the injured were taken to various hospitals (there isn't a hospital in Mexico able to take on over twenty badly injured people at once). One woman who had been standing near the door at the back of the bus was killed when she was flung out into the road, while 22 others were injured, some seriously (including 7 children). Understandably the community was in shock. Of course it could have been any one of them or members of their family.

The members of the Transformation course returned to the Community Center to pray for the families and began to ask themselves what they could do to not only show the love of God to those who had suffered this tragic accident, but also to transform their neighborhood and protect their community from this constant danger on this very hazardous stretch of road. That very afternoon they discussed together ways in which they could mobilize their community to work together and get mirrors and speed-bumps put in to improve the safety of this corner. They hope to speak to bus-drivers and community members, as well as to offer comfort to the families involved and we would ask your prayer for their witness and for God-given opportunities as they seek to try to bring good out of such a tragic situation.

Please pray for . . . .

• The injured adults and children and their families, including one girl that we know has been attending the Homework Club at Armonia.
  
• The family of the woman who died and for opportunities for the Armonia community in Jalalpa to show the love of God to them in their distress.
  
• The efforts of community members to work towards improving this dangerous corner so that efforts can be made to prevent accidents such as this in the future. Pray especially for the role of members of the Transformation Course who, having just finished the course, are now presented with a challenging opportunity to continue to put what they have learnt into practice.