A congregation in Venus, Texas, is mourning with its pastor following a car crash on Saturday, Feb. 3. Mark McDaniel, senior pastor of New Hope Community Church, hit a guardrail while driving his wife and daughter home from a basketball tournament. The guardrail went through their vehicle.
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Brandi McDaniel, the pastor’s wife, and the couple’s younger daughter, 17-year-old Hannah, died from their injuries. Officials are still investigating the crash.
Mark McDaniel: God’s Love Still Abounds
On Monday (Feb. 5), Pastor Mark McDaniel told a reporter what led to the accident. “I was overcome by coughing, and I blacked out,” he said. “We hit the guardrail.” When McDaniel realized his daughter had died on impact, “That’s when my heart died,” he said.
Hannah, who had just applied to college, attended a Christian school in Arlington, Texas. On social media, the school shared photos of a balloon release in her honor. “Hannah overflowed with JOY every day,” wrote Pantego Christian Academy. It canceled classes Monday and is collecting donations for a scholarship in Hannah’s honor.
Brandi McDaniel, the pastor’s wife of 25 years, died in the ambulance. Brandi, who taught children with autism, was “the center of my universe,” Mark McDaniel said.
The pastor, who is used to offering comfort to other grieving families, admitted he’s still in shock. But he told a reporter, “God is there, and his love is abounding, even in tragedy.”
“My daughter and wife are with the Lord, and one day we’ll be reunited,” added an emotional McDaniel. The hope of heaven is sustaining him, he said, adding that he doesn’t know where people would be without that promise.
Texas Church: ‘We Serve the God of All Comfort’
On Sunday, Feb. 4, New Hope Community Church held a special service to offer strength and support for Pastor McDaniel, his older daughter, and his mother-in-law. “We are gathered this morning as a group of wounded healers,” said a church leader who opened the service. “We come to lay our brokenness before the Lord, to be strengthened, to draw comfort.” He acknowledged it wasn’t “a normal day, by any means,” because “normal has left the building.”
The church leader continued, “We serve the God of all comfort, and so we come to draw strength from that.” Then he read 1 Samuel 30:1-6, which describes the Amalekites capturing women, including David’s two wives. Despite David being “greatly distressed,” Scripture notes that he “found strength in the Lord his God.”
