OurCity Magazine

OurPeople

A Bridge to Hope

Saturday, June 12, 2010

By Jack Crittenden


Sheri Briggs remembers her wake-up call well.

She, and her husband, Brew Briggs, were driving on a two-lane highway, returning to their Bend, Oregon home from a surfing contest in Santa Cruz. The year was 1999, and they had four of their five children with them — the youngest only two years old.

Brew, a well-known surfer from La Jolla, was driving his minivan about 55 miles per hour around a turn on a mountain pass. Coming towards him in the opposite lane was a group of cars going 30 or 35 miles per hour.

Suddenly, a car darted into Brew’s lane heading right for him. With cars on his left, he slammed his vehicle to the right, hoping to avoid a head-on collision.

“I turned into the concrete barrier [on the side of the road], and the car hit us just off the side,” Brew said. “We went up into the air and started spinning.”

Sheri, three of their four children and their camping gear were all thrown from the van. Their youngest was thrown 50 feet from the car, the four-year-old was thrown 40 feet. Their 12-year-old son was the only one still in the car when it landed, and Brew somehow ended up underneath the shattered vehicle.

They were battered with broken bones, road rash, cuts and Brew had a severe head injury. But they were all alive.

“The first thing I said to Sheri was ‘did you feel him?’” Brew said. “I felt the presence of God and his protection and I had no fear – an unusual sense of confidence. I felt like we had been in a clear plastic ball that was protecting us.”

The Briggs’ were thankful to be alive, and felt there was a reason.

“It was a launching pad,” Sheri said. “For us to fly in the air like that — especially my two-year-old like a rag doll — and be fine, it made us think ‘God is alive and well and spared our lives — what now?’”

Both Sheri and Brew wanted to be more active in their church, and that opportunity came when the pastor asked them to start a drug rehab home for women. They jumped at the chance and ran the home for the next three years.

“I got really connected to their issues — losing their children, their addictions and then what happens when they leave treatment and try to enter back into society,” Sheri said. “When women have to start over, the needs can be so great.”

Sheri realized that when women went back into society, many lacked the basic things that most family’s take for granted — including dishes, furniture and clothing.

“We wanted to help them — to be a bridge to help them get back into the system,” she said.

To read more of this story, pick up the Summer issue of OurCity San Diego at your local Barnes & Noble Bookstores or by subscribing. To do this go to http://www.ourcitysd.com/thisIssue/comments/where_to_purchase_a_copy_of_OurCity