wfn.org | Teens use flatbed to praise God on interstate

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 6, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{411}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this story.

By Cathy Farmer*

JACKSON, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Wet and tired from their rafting trip down the
Ocoee River just outside Chattanooga, 39 teen-agers from Northside United
Methodist Church and their eight chaperones piled into their chartered bus
for the long trip home to Jackson. 

They didn't get far.

"We hadn't been on Interstate 24 very long before the traffic came to a
halt," said Dietrich "Deech" Kirk, Northside's youth minister. "Not long at
all."

But there was no turning around for the trapped bus. A long line of cars,
trucks, buses and motorcycles stretched behind them. And the road didn't
have much of a shoulder either. That particular stretch of I-24 winds its
way along the side of a cliff. They couldn't go forward and they couldn't
back up.

"When we first stopped it was raining, but when the rain let up, some of us
walked down the road to see what had happened," said Laura Stephenson, 14.
"We found out that there had been an accident about a mile ahead. Two trucks
were on fire."
 
A truck full of frozen chickens had collided with a tractor trailer hauling
cars, spewing diesel fuel everywhere. The fiery crash halted traffic for six
and a half hours.

"I was proud of the kids," Kirk said. "They were really cool. They didn't
whine at all."

What they did do, in addition to inviting the people trapped by the accident
to use the bathroom in their bus and playing with some of the children in
nearby cars, was ask Kirk if they could hold a praise service.

"We could tell some of the people were getting impatient," Stephenson said,
"so a bunch of us asked Deech if it would be OK to ask the guy driving the
flatbed up ahead if we could use his trailer for a praise service."
  
Kirk said sure, and the driver agreed.

All 47 of them clambered onto the flatbed, David Hollis and Kirk bringing
their guitars and Tyler Wolfe pulling out his harmonica. As they started to
sing, people gathered around. 

"We sang everything we knew," Stephenson said. "We'd been to Lake Junaluska
(N.C.) for Jubilee Weekend and we'd learned some new songs. We sang those
too; songs like 'Light the Fire,' 'Prince of Peace' and 'Isaiah 43.' Some of
the songs we learned were weird and wacky," she said, laughing. 

Before long, 25 more kids showed up and climbed aboard the truck. "They were
teens from a Church of Christ church in Nashville," Stephenson said. 

"It was really neat," Kirk said. "They taught us some of their songs too.

"When we first started playing, people yelled, 'Do you know any Hank?' but
then they started asking for Christian songs," he said.

The chartered bus was filled with patient lines of people waiting for the
bathroom, and the flatbed was surrounded by an appreciative audience. 

People who had food began to pass it out to those who didn't. In
appreciation, a few people pressed money for the youth group into Kirk's
hand.

The praise service lasted two hours. 

"I don't know how many people we touched that day," Stephenson said, in awe
of what happened. "Lots of people on the other side of the interstate, where
the traffic was still moving, pulled over to take pictures of us. We only
stopped when we got word that the wreck was about cleared away and we needed
to get back in the bus."

"What a witness it was," Kirk said. "What a witness."

# # # 

*Farmer is communications director of the United Methodist Church's Memphis
Annual Conference. This story first appeared in the conference edition of
the United Methodist Reporter.

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