I'm writing today to quickly tell you a little about a near-death experience that I (along with 5 South African friends) had the other day.

At about 1:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, I was driving down a 14,000+ ft mountain pass down along the Qinghai-Tibet border (1080 km south of where we live), when my brakes gave out completely (cable or something just snapped..you could hear and feel it!).

We immediately began to pick up speed on the steep slope, and because there was a curve just ahead, I instinctively (no time to think, i just did it) drove the car into the mountain on our left to try to force a crash that would slow us down and keep us from plunging off the mountainside.

We never actually hit the mountain, but the tires went into the ditch and the van ended up flipping on its side and then rolling once or twice forward across the highway and off the road on the right side of the highway (the side where the "edge" was). I never thought we would go over (but all my passengers say they sure did!), but we did end up coming to rest on our side (my head and left shoulder were resting in the dirt and broken glass through the opening that was formerly the driver's side window) just about a few yards from the edge.

Amazingly, graciously, none of us were seriously hurt. We sustained few bruises and cuts but that's all. All of our gear (phones, cameras, computers) was spared any harm with the exception of a few scratches on my phone and some damage to one of the guys video cameras (which was fully insured!).

By God's grace we are all ok. Some of the guys were real shaken up at first, but now everyone's in pretty good spirits. (We just celebrated the New Year together by talking and laughing about our adventure.)

My van, however, was totaled and we decided pretty quick that it was going to stay behind. It would have cost us more to get it towed (1000+ km) and repaired than the car itself is worth at this stage. So now we're praying and looking at what kind of vehicle we might purchase for the future.

In spite of this incident, our trip down to that area was very much a success. We accomplished everything that we had planned, and as a nice surprise, I was able to catch up with some old friends.

Thank you to all those of you who are so faithful in praying for us!