WHEN Loleta Henry got saved 15 years ago, she decided that as a gift, she would give her youngest child Jodiann Henry, to the Lord for Him to use as he pleases.

That, despite the grief evident in her tears and periodic outbreaks of, “I am really going to miss Jody”, is the only consolation for the mother of the 16-year-old Bridgeport High student who was killed Friday evening when a Jamaica Urban Transit Company bus plunged into a ravine in Faiths Pen, St Ann.

“When I got saved, she was one-year-old and I told the Lord I was giving Jody to Him and that she should be a blessing. And she was really a blessing to everyone,” Henry said as she sat in her living room in Waterford, St Catherine a day after the incident.

But even that knowledge doesn’t stop Mrs Henry, who has been advised by relatives and church members not to question God, from seeking answers.

“I ask Him why he took her. Of all people, why her? I ask Him if it was that I loved her too much and Him too little,” she said, tears flowing. “But I gave her back to Him so I just have to accept it. It is good to know she went home to the Lord doing something she loved to do for Him.”

Jodiann, who was part of a church group on its way to a retreat at Moneague College in St Ann, was leading a praise and worship session when the bus crashed minutes to nine at night. The other passengers, 39 in all, were hospitalised with multiple injuries. some have since been discharged.

“She always wanted to go on these retreats,” her mother said. “But is the first she going because she was under-aged and just turn 16. She nearly didn’t go either because I did not have the money to pay. Is her aunt paid for her and even when she was packing she was so excited.

“I went to the church (Friday) before she left and I was talking to her and her friends and I said to them ‘I leave you in the hands of the Lord; just open up and let the Lord lead you’,” the child’s mother recalled.

Even as she sought comfort in the memories, Jodiann’s father Kirk Henry sought comfort from another source. He waltzed in and out of the house at random, smiling, a half cup of white rum in hand.

“Mi good man. Mi good. That’s all I have to say ’bout everything,” before we could ask. He left the premises soon after.

The task of identifying Jodiann’s body Friday was left to her older sister, Andrea Chinloy. With blood-shot eyes, Chinloy spoke of the sister she took care of in their mother’s absence.

“She was very quiet, jovial and full of life,” she said. “She was full of so much life. And she had a genuine and a deep passion for Christ. She was on the church choir. The consolation is that she died a Christian.”

The family said the teen was well-liked by her teachers and was doing well in school. They displayed trophies she collected for being the top girl at school in 2008, and for palcing third as part of the school’s quiz team. She placed third in her class last year. Her dream, they said, was to be a teacher of Sociology.

Pastor of the Bayside New Testament Church of God Rev W A Blair, said the church family was also hurting, but was coping.

“It is a very sad moment for all of us,” he said. “Jodiann was one of our very special teen — all of our members are special, but Jodiann was doing so well. I was told that all the way going down she was singing and worshipping.”

Rev Blair said it was the consensus of the over 400 people on the retreat, including the injured, that the retreat should continue.

“We are now in group sessions,” he told the Observer late Saturday evening. “We had a clinical psychologist today and we will continue to have counselling to help relieve the trauma so that the church family can cope.”

Like Jodiann’s mother and sister, Rev Blair said he is comforted knowing the teenager died a Christian.

“So Jodiann has gained eternal life which the devil himself cannot get. The Bible says ‘blessed are the dead who die in the Lord’.”