21-year-old pilot Taylor Hash was on only her third solo flight on March 24th when the unthinkable happened: part of her landing gear fell off the plane and tumbled to the earth below.

“It was definitely the scariest moment I’ve had, probably in my life,” Hash told TODAY of the ordeal. She felt panicked as she realized she would have to land her plane without her front wheel, and hurriedly radioed air traffic control for help.

Flying nearby, veteran pilot and former SpaceX executive Chris Yates was astonished when he witnessed Hash’s landing gear fall off her plane. When he heard her transmission to air traffic control, he was struck by the fact that her first name, Taylor, was the same as his daughter’s. Yates immediately felt paternal toward the young pilot, and his dad mode kicked in. So, he says, did his emotions.

“I didn’t respond on the radio because I just couldn’t even talk,” he said. “I was welled up. I was thinking of my daughter and just how afraid and alone [Hash] probably felt,” he told TODAY.

After getting his emotions under control, Yates reached out to Taylor via radio.

“Taylor, this is Chris,” he said. “My daughter’s name is Taylor and I taught her to fly. We’re going to be just fine, kiddo.”

Hash said just those few words of kindness were what she needed to keep her cool.

“You can really tell how my voice went from frantic, ‘What am I going to do?’ to, ‘OK, I can do this,’ and that was 100% all thanks to him,” Hash said of Yates’ introduction.

Yates kept in contact with Taylor as she made her way to a small airport in Michigan to make her emergency landing, providing her with words of encouragement as she flew, but also distracting her with personal questions to help keep her calm. Learning that she wanted to be a professional pilot, he joked that she was going to have one heck of a story to tell as she started out her career.

“This is a good start. This is a good story to your legacy, kid,” he said.

Throughout her ordeal, Yates soothed Taylor over the radio, talking her through her landing step-by-step. He warned her that the front of her plane would dip when she touched down and lobbed a reassuring “There she comes, the nose is going to come down. You’re OK, you’re OK, you’re OK. Talk to me, kid,” as it did just that.

Hash came back with a joyous “I’m good. I’m all good,” and Yates responded with “Atta girl, I’m proud of you!”

That was the moment when it all hit Hash, and she broke down. “As soon as he said that, he goes, ‘I’m proud of you,’ the waterworks came,” she told TODAY. Yates said he teared up at seeing Hash land safely as well.

Big Plans Ahead

Her scary ordeal did not dim Hash’s desire to become a professional pilot. She said if she can handle that situation, she can handle any other mishaps that might come her way. The two pilots, who have plans to meet up and fly together soon, also credit the air traffic controller in the tower for allowing Yates to talk Hash through her landing.

This is truly a heartwarming case of Chris Yates being in the the right place—or air space—at the right time, and of a dad using his instincts to help someone else’s child in need. Best wishes to both Yates and Hash as they continue their flying adventures.

Spring entered like a Lion late last month as deadly tornadoes ripped through Mississippi and Alabama on March 24th. At least 26 are confirmed dead in what was a particularly deadly outbreak. Yet, the death toll could have been much worse, and a Christian weatherman from station WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi is being hailed for saving lives for two reasons: the urgency of his reporting, and an on-air prayer for those he knew were watching his coverage.

As meteorologist Matt Laubhan reported on the tornadic activity in his viewing area, his tone and demeanor became increasingly concerned as he urged residents to take cover.

“Oh man, north side of Amory, this is coming in,” he said to residents of a small town as frightening images of the tornado appeared on his radar map. Then, spontaneously, he cried out “Dear Jesus, please help them, Amen.”

One Amory resident, Leah Ann Hubbard, told the Independent that Laubhan’s serious tone is what convinced her to seek shelter from the tornadoes.

She recounted watching him report and the moment she knew her life could be in danger: “All of a sudden, Matt says, ‘This is a potentially deadly tornado.’ I just remember him saying ‘deadly’ over and over.’ He saved lives, for sure.”

In an interview with CBN, Laubhan related how his prayer to Jesus just popped out of his mouth out of his concern and care for his viewers’ safety. “Like anything that you practice without thinking, it just kind of happened,” he said.

“It was authentic,” he continued. “It did not come from me. I did not intend to pray. I’m not gonna say I thought in my head, ‘Don’t ever pray,’ but I also never intended to do it. So, I do think that it just kind of came bursting out and that it came in a situation where so many people were hurt and killed.”

Laubhan said that although he has tracked hundreds of storms, he’s “almost never” been as stressed and concerned as he was that fateful Friday night, when the warning signs he had seen communicated on paper earlier in the day had horrifyingly come to life. It is certainly a mark of his faith in God and his prayer habits that in addition to doing his job and providing his community with the information they needed to stay safe, he also uttered a prayer from his heart.

He went on to tell CBN that said prayer reflected something he has tried to teach his children, saying, “[I’ve] always taught [my] kids that prayer does not need to be like a pharisee, this long, elaborate [invocation],” Laubhan said. “If you have something in your heart, say it. God understands it.”

For her part, Leah Ann Hubbard is thankful that Matt Laubhan is her weatherman and that his warnings kept her safe. “Without Matt and the tornado sirens, we would not have known anything bad was coming,” she said. “Until it was too late.”

Laubhan’s excellent weather reporting has been honored in the past with multiple Emmys, but it’s not the earthly rewards that mean the most to him. A quick look at his social media profiles tell you what the man is all about, as he lists the three most important things in his life: “God>Family>weather.”

As details continue to emerge about last week’s shooting at Nashville’s Covenant Christian School, so has a celebrity’s account of the events surrounding that horrific morning of Monday, March 27th. Actress Melissa Joan Hart, who lit up TVs during the 90s on Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, revealed last week on Instagram that she and her husband Mark Wilkerson were driving by the school when they saw children fleeing. Realizing something was wrong, they jumped into action.

Melissa Joan Hart Details Helping Kindergarteners Fleeing The Covenant School

Hart tearfully explained that she and Wilkerson happened to be on the way to parent-teacher conferences at their three sons’ nearby school when they saw the frantic children running, so they got out of the car and began to help.

“We helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway. They were climbing out of the woods. They were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school,” Hart said tearfully on her Instagram video. “So we helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get (to) their teachers.” She went on to say that they also helped a mom reunite with her children.

Hart then added, “I don’t just don’t know what to say anymore. Enough is enough. And just pray. Pray for the families.”

The video starts out by explaining that Hart’s family, which includes teenage sons Mason and Braydon and ten-year-old Tucker, relocated to Tennessee from Connecticut, and that they were living nearby almost ten years ago when the Sandy Hook school shooting took place, killing fourteen children and six adults.

“So this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being in close proximity,” she explained. “Luckily, we are all OK.”

Gratefully, Hart, Wilkerson, and the kindergarteners they helped on that terrifying Monday morning are all fine. But the shooter did take the lives of six people at Covenant Christian school: nine-year-olds Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and William Kenney, and adult staff members Katherine Koonce, head of school, Michael Hill, school custodian and father of seven and Cynthia Peak, a substitute teacher. Peak is reported to be a close friend of Tennessee’s First Lady Maria Lee.

 

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Nashville School Shooter Was a Former Student

Police in Nashville say the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, was a former student at the school. Hale was being treated for an emotional disorder and police say they have evidence that she specifically targeted the school and had been planning the attack for months. Hale was killed in a confrontation with Nashville police within fifteen minutes of the start of the incident, but police said she fired 152 rounds before they got to her.

Covenant Christian school is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian, a large church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America.

In an interview Steve Harvey gave on TV, he breaks down when he begins to share about a difficult experience he went through. Harvey speaks about the need for Christians to love those going through difficult times.

Steve Harvey Breaks Down Discussing the Concepts of Grace and Mercy

American actor, comedian, TV host, and producer, Steve Harvey is passionate about the way people treat others. And the 66-year-old put this into practice when he founded the Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation with his wife.

Their philanthropic organization is focused on helping fatherless children through various outreach services and resources.

But Steve Harvey, formally named Broderick Stephen Harvey Sr., talks a little bit in an interview on TBN about how his passion to care for those going through difficult times started. In the interview, the Family Feud Host breaks down, saying, “When you ain’t got nobody…people don’t know what it’s like.”

He points out that “every one of us can make a mistake,” speaking about sin.

Steve Harvey reminds viewers that despite the fact that all people sin, God forgives. Yet, he breaks down, recalling the judgement and lack of empathy or support he had received at certain times when he’d made a mistake in the past.

He said that he knows what it’s like to feel alone. “I can’t tell them what it feels like sometimes,” Steve Harvey says, explaining that his mother’s words about grace and mercy carried him through the lonely times.

“It’s all I got sometimes,” he breaks down discussing his need for God’s grace and mercy in those times.

He breaks down explaining that he’d “be trying to hold it together” on his own.

Watch him discuss his experience here:

Interestingly, one of the main reasons Harvey breaks down in this conversation is not only because he felt alone, but because when he tried to let someone join him, he experienced rejection in the church.

Steve Harvey Discusses a Way the Church is Ineffective

“When you try to go over there to somebody who’s supposed to be a Christian, and then all of the sudden, you get this whole–looking down your nose at me because I made a mistake,” Steve Harvey says.

He recalls an example conversation with a Christian who approached him with judgement, saying, “‘All I’m telling you…today, right now, I’m going through something, I’m having some trouble. I just need you man. Hear what I’m saying?”

Unfortunately, when he’d reached out for help as he was going through difficult times and had made a mistake, people didn’t respond with grace or mercy.

“People, man, they get up on their horse and they ride this so high. You feel like you can’t go over there. And then the church is ineffective like that,” Steve Harvey told the TBN host.

Explaining that he knows a lot of people who could use some help from Christians, he says, “That’s what I wish was different.”

“I just wish that the community was more together,” Harvey commented, explaining how people have all kinds of different journeys.

Wondering how others reacted to Harvey’s exhortation to the Christian community? Click on.

Evelyn Dieckhaus, a nine-year-old student at The Covenant School, was one of the six victims in the mass shooting at the school on Monday (March 27).

Dieckhaus’ family described her as a “shining light in this world,” sharing that their “hearts are completely broken. “We cannot believe this has happened.”

It has been reported that Dieckhaus was desperately trying to pull the fire alarm to warn her fellow classmates and teachers of the terrifying rampage the shooter was about to unleash.

Twitter has deemed Dieckhaus a hero.

“One of the 9-year-old victims of the Nashville school shooting goes to my church,” said Sarah Drury, Dieckhaus’ Sunday school teacher, during a vigil Monday night. “She was adorable. I taught her equally angelic big sister in Sunday Sunday school. Her mom Katy volunteered in our children’s ministry—such a sweet Christian family. We had a prayer vigil tonight at our church. We are, the whole city, saturated in grief. Now it’s time to marry prayer and grief with action.”

At that same vigil, Dieckhaus’ sister told attendees, “I don’t want to be an only child.”

A GoFundMe set up for the Dieckhaus family has raised over $108,496, surpassing its goal of $50,000.

Lauren Ivy, a mother of one of Dieckhaus’ friends, said, “I cannot fathom the pain Katy [Evelyn’s mother] and her family are experiencing. All I can do is pray, and I am begging you to do the same. No one should have to explain to their 9 year old that their friend is gone due to such a senseless act of gun violence. Just pray for all of the families affected by this. It’s truly a tragic situation.”

The shooter took five other innocent lives before being shot dead by Metro Nashville Police Department officers.

The victims of the shooting have been identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus (9), William Kinney (9), Hallie Scruggs (9), custodian Mike Hill (61), substitute teacher Cynthia Peak (61), and Head of the School Katherine Koonce (60).

Scruggs was the nine-year-old daughter of Covenant Presbyterian Church senior pastor Chad Scruggs and his wife Jada.

Hallie’s father told ABC News, that they “are heartbroken. She was such a gift. Through tears we trust that she is in the arms of Jesus who will raise her to life once again.”

Authorities have reported that the shooter, born a female, identified as transgender man and had a manifesto, as well as a map of the school. The shooter shot out windows of locked doors in order to gain access to the school and was armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun.

A newlywed couple was enjoying their long-anticipated honeymoon in Spain when they came upon a burning building. Without thinking, they sprung into action, only to learn the building was full of babies needing to be rescued.

Honeymooners Rescue 20 Babies and Return as Newlywed Heroes

David Squillante and Doran Smith of Rhode Island were married around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic; so they decided to postpone their honeymoon for two years.

The plan was to go to Barcelona, Spain for their honeymoon once the pandemic was over, and it’s a blessing from God that they did.

The couple went to Barcelona simply as newlyweds, but they returned as heroes.

David’s alma Mater, Johnson & Wales University, proudly shared their story on Facebook:

According to David, “eating delicious food,” and  “relaxing” were the main plans for their Barcelona honeymoon. They were also planning to do a lot of sight-seeing while in Spain.

But saving a bunch of babies from a burning building?

“Hadn’t really pictured that happening,” Doran told NBC News in an interview you can watch here:

The couple says they were planning to take a walking tour that afternoon when they saw the burning building. It was said to have been caused by an electrical issue.

“I saw a flame coming out of the doorway, next to the door that these women had come out of,” said Doran.

“There’s a fire,” Doran recalled saying to David. “And immediately Dave dropped his backpack and ran across the street into the building.”

From David’s perspective, “Instinct took over,” explaining that he didn’t even think about it; he just went into the building and tried to help how he could.

According to the couple, the women they saw were very distraught, explaining what was happening.

David told NBC News that once he entered the building, he realized there were babies in there.

“I just ran in and saw a bunch of babies,” David said. Continuing on, he told reports that the babies were “sleeping and kind of like screaming.”

David immediately took action, pulling a crib that had babies in it out the door. Doran jumped in, too, along with others. The honeymooners rescued nearly 20 babies.

Along with others who responded to the fire, the couple said they worked together to save the children. “Dave would hand me a baby, I would hand it to someone else,” recalled Doran. “I ended up holding one across the street, and we ended up handing one to a guy with a broken arm.”

In the end, the honeymooners rescued all the babies who were in that burning building. David said the babies “were ranging in age from newborns to 3 years old.”

Although the couple does not speak Spanish, they didn’t let that stop them from jumping in to help.

“In the moment everyone just wanted to help,” Explained David to reporters. “Even though we didn’t speak the same language, we knew everyone was there to help these babies.”

Eventually emergency workers and firefighters arrived and put out the fire.

Once everything was under control, the couple continued on to their walking tour. Apparently, that the fact that the honeymooners rescued 20 babies didn’t sink in immediately.

David explained, later they said to themselves, “We were like, remember that time we just ran into a fire and like saved a bunch of babies?”

While David has many family members who are firefighters, the whole incident doesn’t exactly seem real to him.

“It doesn’t feel real at all. Every time I tell…I’m like, ‘did that really happen?’” explained David. “It felt like a movie scene. But we were happy to be in the right place at the right time.”

Despite their heroic act where the honeymooners rescue a bunch of babies, they remain humble and look at it as, “We have a cool story to tell our kids,” David told NBC News.

Doran, reassured by her new husband’s act of heroism, said, “I never have to worry if we’re in an emergency, he’s gonna step up and take care of the situation.”

Wondering how others responded to this act of heroism in a coincidental encounter? Click on.

After learning about his favorite Waffle House waiter’s financial struggles, an 8-year-old boy from Little Rock, Arkansas got to work raising over $100K for the employee.

How did an 8-year-old boy Raise Over $100K for a Waffle House Waiter?

Kayzen Hunter is only 8 years old, but this little boy didn’t let that stop him when he learned about a Waffle House waiter’s financial struggles.

Just as the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:12, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity,” Kayzen didn’t let his age stop him from doing something in love for another person.

The 8-year-old has now raised over $100K for a Waffle House server.

Check out their story below:

This server wasn’t just anyone to Hunter. The second-grader traditionally goes to the family’s local Waffle House in Little Rock, Arkansas, each weekend, and they always sit in the same section, where 29-year-old Devonte Gardner often serves.

Gardner and Kayzen have actually become friends over time, and the Waffle House waiter loves to give Kayzen a high-five as soon as the family arrives.

Gardner even knows Kayzen’s favorite breakfast order, which is eggs with cheese and hash browns with cheese.

According to Kayzen, Gardner “always treats everyone with kindness.”

Talking about their developing relationship over time, Kayzen said, “As we started to go more and more and we met Devonte, we realized he’s just really a light in the world.”

That may be one reason Kayzen was so motivated to do something when on a recent trip to the Waffle House with his grandpa, Kayzen learned that Gardner’s family was struggling financially.

The Waffle House employee shared that his apartment had been infested with black mold and rats, and that his family had had to move into a motel to keep himself, his wife, and his two young daughters safe.

Kayzen had compassion for Gardner, learning that his favorite server was walking miles to work from the motel.

Kayzen was sad to hear of Gardner’s struggles; so he decided to set up a GoFundMe page.

“Hi, my name is Kayzen, I am 8 years old,” he wrote on the page. “I am wanting to raise funds for my friend, Devonte, who I met and have come to know from eating breakfast at Waffle House.”

The page had a $5,000 goal, but as of the writing of this article, it has raised more than $100K for the beloved Waffle House employee.

“Devonte is a hard-working dad with two little girls and a wife. He is a dedicated worker and has to walk or get a ride to get to work every day,” Kayzen wrote. “He was looking for a decent priced car, and his family was unfortunate and ended up in an apartment riddled with black mold.”

When asked about his son’s generosity, Kayzen’s dad, Cory Hunter said, “Kazen always thinks of other people. And it’s nice to see him step up at such a young age.”

Hoping that others will have as big of a heart as him, Kayzen finished his description on the GoFundMe page, saying “He always greets us with the biggest smile. I hope your heart is as BIG as mine and you will help me spread kindness in the world.”

In an interview, Kayzen was asked about his efforts to help Gardner and he said, “It just feels good to help someone else.”

So what was Gardner able to do after this 8-year-old boy raised over $100K for a Waffle House server?