Tara Newby, 24, believes God has a plan; that God always works everything for the good; that there is always a better plan, it’s just that we can’t always see that plan.

Newby (née Wood), who grew up in Armstrong and graduated from Pleasant Valley Secondary School in 2002, believes it was God’s plan to call her husband of four years, Preston Newby, 24, home to be with Him on the night of Sept. 15 in a tragic motor vehicle accident in Washington state.

And it is God and Newby’s unwavering faith in Him that is helping her deal with the loss of “the most incredible person I’ve ever known.” And it is God, she believes, who will watch over her, their 18-month-old son, Jacob, and the Newby’s unborn second child (she is approximately 11 weeks pregnant).

“If I didn’t have my faith in my God, I’d be holed up in a closet somewhere, crying all day,” said Newby from her home in Tualatin, near Portland, surrounded by extended family and friends.

Tara Wood met Texan Preston Newby when the two were freshmen at Briercrest College in Caronport, Sask., near Moose Jaw. Two years later, the pair transferred to Portland’s Multnomah Bible College to finish up their studies. They married on June 26, 2004, and, two years later, Preston became youth pastor at Lake Bible Church in Lake Oswego, Ore., just outside of Portland. They welcomed their son, Jacob, on March 6, 2007.

On the evening of Sept. 15, 2008, the Newbys were heading to British Columbia to visit Tara’s family. Traveling on Interstate 5, at around 11:30 a.m. near the town of Toledo, Wash., cars in front of the Newby vehicle came to a quick stop, and began to swerve to the left to go around a giant elk that had been hit. Ahead of the animal, stopped on the side, was the car that hit it, its front window smashed in, and no one inside the vehicle getting out.

Preston, a servant of God, a man, Tara said, that always wanted to serve people, that he was never the first priority and always put other people first, turned to his wife and said, “We’ve got to stop and help.”

Preston pulled over the vehicle, got out and began to call 9-1-1 because someone in the car was bleeding.

As he was talking to the 9-1-1 dispatcher, another car, who didn’t see the elk, swerved left instead of right, and hit Preston.

Tara, as she wrote in her blogspot about the accident, said, “It was by God’s grace that I had turned my head at the time he got hit. But after I heard the crash, I turned around to find my beloved laying on the road.”

Tara rushed to her husband’s side. He was alive, but unconscious, and, according to Tara, looked so peaceful.

She sang to her beloved, prayed and cried out to the Lord. She began to shake so intensely, she wrote, “I lost his heartbeat, and I do believe he passed away in my arms because when the paramedics got there, they began CPR right away, but it was the Lord’s will to take him home.”

Preston Newby was passionate about God, passionate about getting others to know the Lord better, and touched so many lives everywhere he went.

“Everyone who met him just loved him,” said Tara. “He lived a short life, but a full life.”

More than 700 people crammed into Lake Bible Church on Sept. 20 for his funeral.

The driver who hit Preston sent letters to the church’s pastor and to Tara, who absolved the driver of all blame.

“It was an accident,” she said, and, remember, “God is completely in control and he allowed this to happen because God always works everything for the good.”

“I keep replaying the accident in my mind,” wrote the driver. “I’m so grateful that (his wife) didn’t see him get hit. Of all of the things she could have done, she came up and comforted me.”

As tough as it may be to comprehend the magnitude of this tragedy, Tara Newby is at peace. She believes it was her husband’s time to go home to be with the Lord.

Preston’s motto was: “To live is Christ. To die is Gain.”

“He is with Jesus, his Lord and Saviour,” wrote Tara. “He has escaped this world, and I think we’re all jealous of him.

“And I have the incredible hope that I will see him again.”

North Okanagan friends of Tara have set up a trust fund for Newby and her children. If you would like to make a donation to the fund, you can go into a Vernon or Armstrong branch of CIBC, and ask to donate to the Newby Trust Account.

You can also read more of Newby’s amazing courage and her strong faith in God at www.taranewby.blogspot.com.