“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”Matthew 25:13

We are often told that we will never know when it is our time to go, and so we should be prepared at all times. Jesus tells us that no one knows when He will return, but He could come again at any time, BUT one thing is certain, if we die before Jesus returns then judgement is set and there is nothing we can do at that point to change our judgement. What we have done to that point in our lives will be read before God and we will either earn eternal life with Jesus, or eternal death. There is no middle ground.

Sadly, last week on June 15 2023, there was a terrible accident in Manitoba. This accident involved a semi-truck and a bus carrying 25 seniors on their way to a casino for a day trip. The bus was crossing the highway when it was hit by the truck. 15 of the seniors were killed in the accident and 10 people including both drivers, were sent to hospital with various injuries.

While this crash occurred a fair distance from where I live, the passengers on the bus came from a town very close to me and the whole community is affected by this tragic accident. It’s eerily similar to the Humboldt bus crash that occurred in 2018 when a semi-truck hit a bus carrying a hockey team. 16 people were killed in that crash and it had devastating effects on the community of Humboldt. Since that crash some changes were made in the rules surrounding truck driver training and licensing, but I do not think any of that would’ve changed the outcome of this accident.

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Without attempting to place blame, the RCMP are tasked with determining the cause of the accident, it appears that the bus pulled out across the highway in front of the oncoming truck. The truck was equipped with a dashcam and initial information coming from investigators seems to indicate that the truck didn’t have any time to react. The bus was pushed into a ditch and burst into flames. It seems to be quite amazing that anyone survived such a horrific wreck.

So over the past few days we’ve been learning some of the names of the occupants of the bus. These were seniors from the area, just out for a day of fun when this occurred. They had boarded the bus that morning not knowing the horrific event that awaited them just before they reached their destination. I just hope they were ready!

What do I mean by that statement? As I stated at the beginning of this post, if we die before Jesus returns then our judgement is set. Nothing we, or any family member, do at that point will change our fate. So it is imperative that we are always right with Jesus, so that if He comes, or if something happens to end our time on earth, that we are ready to go with Him!

Those seniors had no idea that trip would be their last, and we don’t know when our last moment will be either. We must live every day, hour, minute, and second as if it is our last. We must live right, follow God’s laws and be right with Jesus! He wants us all to join Him, but He also gave us free will to make our own choices. Those choices can be right or wrong, but making the wrong choice will cause nothing but pain to you in the end.

We keep these people in our prayers as they go through the difficult recoveries. We keep the bus driver in our prayers as we do the family members of those who lost their lives. We also keep the first responders and bystanders who stopped to help in our prayers. And most of all we keep the truck driver in our prayers and hope that he can somehow work through this. It’s a difficult job at times and I have no idea how he will deal with this.

God bless.