The words were meant to reassure the small congregation.
Struggling for answers among tragedy, members of the International Church of the Restoration looked to senior pastor Aron Amazonas, who offered a simple but truthful message:
“Life goes on,” he told the 50 people sitting in front of him, a slight tremble in his voice.
One week ago, five members of the Cobb County church were died in a gruesome Florida interstate crash that killed 11 people and injured another 18. The small Marietta church of Brazilian immigrants suddenly found itself in the national spotlight, grieving for those lost, while ministering to those who survived. Everything changed on that early, smoke-filled Sunday.
With tears still flowing, the mourning congregation returned to church a week later to comfort each other and remember those lost. It was Amazonas, again Sunday, guiding the congregation through the tragedies.
Killed were another pastor and his wife, Jose and Adriana Carmo, along with their 17-year-old daughter, Leticia. The pastor’s brother, Edson Carmo, and Edson Carmo’s girlfriend, Rosa DeSilva – also died. Lidiane Carmo, 15, lost every member of her immediate family.
“We need prayers,” Rosana Alves, a family friend and church member, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The day after the deaths, Alves and two other women were inside the Carmo family home, wiping tears and flipping through snapshots of smiling teenagers and happy faces. The women said the family constantly professed a love of God and church.
It was church that led more than a dozen members of the congregation to a three-day conference in Orlando. The conference served as reunion for Brazilian churches, Alves said. On the final night of the conference, the topic was learning to be prepared for Jesus, Barbara Almeida, a church member said.
“They were ready,” Almeida said.
A week later, the church continued its struggle to move past the unthinkable loss.
"Not everything is tears," Amazonas said Sunday. "We had five people go to be with the Lord."
Nothing was said during the Sunday service about the crash itself, but the physical and emotional wounds were obvious. Wearing a neck brace, church member and crash survivor Joilson Lima was greeted with open arms and sobbing. Lima attended church, but his wife remains hospitalized in Florida, where she is recovering from injuries to her face.
Just a week before, a group of 15 church members left the religious conference in two vans. On I-75 near Gainesville, Fla., shortly after 4 a.m., they encountered a brush fire that, along with the fog, considerably reduced visibility. Weberson Barbosa watched helplessly from behind the wheel as the van in front of him crashed into what would become a 20-vehicle pileup. His van hit the one in front, though everyone in his van survived.
Lucimera Boutin was awakened by the sound of clashing metal and screams. She had no idea what had happened.
“I was so scared,” Boutin said. “I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know where I was.”
Her surroundings looked like a war zone or a scene from a movie, Boutin said. With hazy smoke and fire everywhere, Boutin could hardly see her own hand in front of her face. She heard what she thought was an explosion.
Then she saw the other church van. She was afraid to get close to the mangled mess, she said.
Among the wreckage were five friends. Somehow, 15-year-old Lidiane was alive, though in critical condition with broken bones and internal injuries. It would be two days before she would be told the news that her parents and sister were gone.
Back in Marietta, the close-knit congregation did the one thing it knew to do: prayed. Monday and Tuesday nights, people gathered at the church, whose home is rented space in an office park. They shared information and updates and found themselves faced with a harsh reality. Prayers weren’t enough.
Some church members said it didn’t feel right to ask others for help. But the costs of holding memorial services for five members, then returning those bodies to Brazil, figured to be much larger than the church’s budget.
“We are in an uncomfortable position, asking for help,” Socorro Curtis, a pastor, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, speaking through a translator. “Today, it is necessary.”
The church is sorting through offers to assist from funeral homes, airlines and strangers who learned of the church’s plight in media reports.
A representative of the Brazilian Consulate in Atlanta spoke to church members one evening, offering her sympathy and support. But she didn’t have the answers to crash survivors’ questions about the logistics and costs of transporting those killed in the crash back to their homeland.
“We needed her to really view our pain and take action,” said Barbosa, while leaning on crutches due to the foot injury he sustained.
Florida Governor Rick Scott visited Shands Hospital in Gainesville on the day of the crash to visit victims, including Lidiane, and pledged his support. Church members are hopeful that help will come to fruition soon.
“Governor Scott is very moved by this horrible tragedy and is making every effort to assist as quickly as possible,” his office said in an emailed statement.
Money was not the only worry. Although the Carmo family had traveled to the U.S. legally 12 years ago, those visas had expired, pastor Bobby Curtis said. The family had been living in the country illegally, and church members worried that Lidiane being deported was a real possibility, one more struggle for a teenager hospitalized hundreds of miles away from home.
“She can’t go back to Brazil,” Bobby Curtis said.
Although Lidiane is currently an illegal citizen, she is protected because she is now an orphan, Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney, told the AJC. U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement has also said it has no plans to deport Lidiane.
“She’s just like any other kid here in America,” Curtis said of Lidiane.
Both Lidiane and her sister attended Sprayberry High School, where hundreds of students and teachers held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night to honor one girl’s life and pray for the other girl’s recovery. In front of pictures of the Carmo family, students sang two of Leticia’s favorite songs and shared memories of the bubbly girl.
“Leticia was the first one to sit with me on the bus when I moved here,” Paola Ochoa, an 11th grader, said after the vigil. Ochoa helped organize the sale of T-shirt and bracelets to honor the sisters, and was also making plans to hold a walk at the school and plant a tree in her friend’s honor.
Equally as sweet spirited, Lidiane is the quieter of the two sisters, students said. Lidiane’s classmates said they’re eager for her to return to school. While in the hospital, Lidiane has been unable to update her Facebook page or talk to her friends, they said.
Since the wreck, Lidiane has constantly had a family member or church member by her side, including the aunt and uncle who will take care of her once she is released.
On Sunday, Fabio Souza told church members his nieces were like daughters to him. And when he learned of the crash, he left immediately for Florida to be by Lidiane's side. It was Souza who told Lidiane the her family members had died.
"Uncle, are you going to take care of me?" Souza said Lidiane asked. "Of course," Souza told her.
Lidiane has asked for Pastor Socorro Curtis to visit her, and the Curtis family planned to make the trip after church Sunday, the one-week anniversary of the crash.
The teen is eager to heal and start her life again, her church friends said.
“She understands it’s God’s purpose,” Socorro Curtis said. “She understands that she’s a seed left from her church. Her Christian work will be continued.”
The next step for the church will be to hold memorials for the five that died. The congregation wants to take care of those it has lost and those that survived, Amazonas said.
With faith, he said, the church will pull through.
TO HELP
Donations can be made to the Carmo Family Funeral Fund at any Bank of America branch. The account number is 334036157634.
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