Posted on 06/03/2005 6:25:24 PM PDT by ken21
Mennonite family relies on faith after crash After six weeks of care, family plans to continue journey, minus one.
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By Melissa Ludwig
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, June 3, 2005
TEMPLE -- There is no way Isaac Friesen Dyck could have known.
The 20-year-old died six weeks ago in a gruesome wreck near Jarrell that seriously injured his parents and seven of his siblings, all deeply religious Mennonites on their way to Canada.
Yet in the week before his death, Dyck told his sisters that he wanted to die because he felt God was calling him.
Isaac Hiebert Dyck's eyes filled with tears Thursday as he recounted the story about his son. The family has been living at the Ronald McDonald House in Temple since April 21, when a man police say was drunk drove his Jeep the wrong direction on Interstate 35 and struck the Dycks' van head-on.
In May, the Georgetown chapter of the Salvation Army bought train tickets to send the four youngest children to stay with family in Canada. On Thursday, the Dycks learned that the group would pay for the rest of the family to head there June 11.
The Dycks spend their winters in the Mexican state of Durango, where they grow corn and wheat in a small colony of Mennonites. They head to Canada for the spring and summer to work as migrant farmers, picking asparagus and cucumbers.
When the wreck occurred, they were on their way to Canada for another reason: The Dycks' oldest daughter, 23-year-old Katharina, lives there and was to be married. The wedding has been delayed.
My son "said he would help me drive," Dyck said through a translator. "When we left the rest area, he changed his mind. I was in the middle lane, going just fine, and all of a sudden the impact happened. I had no choice, I could not turn or do anything."
The driver's side passenger seat, where Isaac Friesen Dyck was sitting, bore the brunt of the impact.
The Jeep, driven by Fermine Castillo, hit the van so hard that its license plate got stuck in the grill of the van, officials said. Castillo, 21, has been charged with intoxication manslaughter and is facing several charges of intoxication assault, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said.
Castillo has two prior drunken driving convictions in Travis County. Under a bill passed this session, he could end up serving 10- and 20-year sentences consecutively if convicted on all charges.
After the wreck, the Dyck family was taken to Scott & White Hospital in Temple with serious injuries: broken jaws, legs, collarbones and backs, officials said. Doctors and nurses could not understand their language, an obscure dialect called Low German spoken by pockets of Mennonites in Mexico and Canada. Isaac Dyck also speaks Spanish but could not speak because he had a broken jaw.
Amazingly, the hospital's chief academic officer, Walter Dyck, shares a heritage with the family and was able to translate. He is not related to the family.
Still in wheelchairs and with visible injuries, the family held a funeral service for Isaac Friesen Dyck in the hospital chapel shortly after the wreck. Victims assistance workers said everyone in attendance was devastated at the sight of the once-handsome man lying in a pine casket made by Mennonites in Seminole, near the New Mexico border, who had heard of the family's plight.
Isaac said his son, who loved driving tractors, had told the family he wanted to live in the United States.
"He said he would be more comfortable in the U.S.," Dyck said. "Then he died here."
Williamson County victims assistance worker Su Knight said the family lost everything they owned. They have astronomical hospital bills and will not be able to work the vegetable harvest in Canada.
Dyck said he is not angry at the man who hit them. God and the law will judge him, he said.
"It's just God's will," he said. "God does no wrong, and if that is what God's will was, we have to accept it."
mludwig@statesman.com; 246-0043
How to help
The Dyck family needs to replace items lost in the wreck: a vehicle, dentures, eyeglasses, clothing, shoes, bedding, kitchen utensils. Hospital social workers say cash donations are best because the family can take very little with them across the Canadian border. Checks can be made out to the Isaac Dyck Family Assistance Fund at the Scott & White Hospital Development Office, 2401 S. 31st St., Temple, TX 76508.
very sad.
a drunk driver, driving on the wrong side of i-35, hit them head on.
I love this story, ken, and I am taking the liberty of using the live thread ping list so nobody misses it.
thanks for your help.
I am positive that if the Mennonite Relief Fund were contacted all necessities would be provided or if a Mennonite Church were contacted, they would take it from there.
Will keep the family in prayer. I hope the perp gets the maximum sentence.Mennonites were persecuted in Europe and moved to USA and Canada to escape that only to be run over by drunks. Such a tragedy.
I was just thinking the same thing. They were very helpful during several tornadoes and floods in our area. Hopefully a church in the area will contact them.
Yes, we attend a Mennoite Church and know for a fact that they not only take care of others during bad times they absolutely take care of their own.
I'll be sending hubby to work in the a.m. with a copy of this story. I have no doubt that it will put the local M.C. in overdrive.
Thanks for the ping
bttt
"Mennonites were persecuted in Europe and moved to USA and Canada "
Persecution? What about the Mennonite Holocaust under Papa Joe Stalin?
The communists committed genocide to the tune of 12 million victims from 1921 to 1932. This included nearly 1 million Mennonites and other fundamentalist Germans.
Its sad to say that the successful coverup of this genocide emboldened the young Hitler to committ what he did 15 years later.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:kJv-Z_BBRgsJ:www.artukraine.com/famineart/amresp.htm+mennonite+famine-genocide&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
How very sad.
Hmmmm...they're migrant workers.....wonder if they'd like to work in Hood River, OR....in the orchards there.....story is very sad....
Not sure if this was the case here, but I remember hearing a program where a sheriff said one should never drive in the lefthand lane on the freeway at night, because this is where the majority of these head-on crashes occur. This is because when the drunk driver pulls onto the freeway going the wrong way they will most likely drive on THEIR far right (usually without headlights) This puts them in the lefthand lane and there is absolutely no warning that a head on crash is coming until it's too late.
There are also a lot of german and russian mennonites living in Paraguay S.A. Paraguay was the only country that would accept families who had a handicapped family member. (Back in the 30s and 40s.) They were fleeing religious persecution. I lived there as a little girl in the 70s.
My only gripe with the mennonite faith is their refusal to serve in the armed forces. No exceptions.
A member of my family was killed by a drunk driver a few years ago, and "It's just God's will, God does no wrong, and if that is what God's will was, we have to accept it." was the only thing that got a lot of family members (including myself) through it. What a sad story. Prayers going up for everyone involved.
I am so sorry for your loss. I suspect I could not handle it that way though. Accepting it as God's will must take a lot of faith.
When will we ever learn?
Just tragic. Isn't Austin, the a**hole of Texas, a sanctuary city? Wonder if the drunk murderer with the two prior DWIs is also an illegal alien.
My Mennonite ancestors had a long history of serving in the military as conscientious objector medics.
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