Some members of Greater New Friendship Baptist Church in Dublin were en route on I-16 to attend a revival event at a church in Macon on Tuesday evening.
But after a fiery crash killed two members of the church caravan on the interstate and injured several others, New Friendship is planning a vigil at 7 p.m. Thursday, according to the Macon Telegraph.
“Please continue to pray for our church family,” church officials said in a Facebook post after the crash, which involved multiple vehicles at rush hour.
A church deacon, 84-year-old Robert Ray of Vidalia, was killed when a tractor-trailer slammed into the back of his car, according to Bibb County deputies.
And an 81-year-old woman, Marjorie Jones, was riding in a New Friendship church van when it ran off the freeway during the crash, deputies said. She went into cardiac arrest and died after suffering trauma, Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Gerard Lawrence Thompson Sr., 49, of Palmetto, is facing three counts of vehicular homicide in connection with the crash. He is in the Bibb County jail in lieu of $50,000 bond. Officials said he was driving a TRX Trucking Company vehicle.
A third person killed in the crash, who was not associated with the church, has not been identified.
Rev. Nathan Amest of New Friendship told the Telegraph that “we all will miss brother Day and sister Marjorie Jones.
“We are holding on by God’s grace. We’re gonna be all right.”
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