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BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

'The truck stopped here,' Hampton Conway said, holding a hand up inches away from his face.

He remembers lying on the pavement. He remembers the driver backing the 18-wheeler off his arm; he also remembers his wife?s prayers. In the accident last August that took his left arm, Conway never lost consciousness and he never lost faith.

Today he wants to tell people about it.

Sharing one?s faith is what a disciple does, says Conway, a certified lay speaker and member of the Men?s Chorus of Queen?s Chapel UMC in Beltsville.

'I may have lost my arm, but I have my life. I have a wife who I love and who loves me and I can still hold my grandbabies. I like cake. God?s given me icing. I don?t have any reason to complain,' said Conway.

Even before the accident it was that way for him and his wife Sharon, who led marriage enrichment retreats at Queen?s Chapel.

'That?s how we travel. God goes with us,' he said. 'It?s too hard a trip without God.'

But that?s not the only way Conway travels. Ever since he was a little boy, and saw his father?s yellow Harley, he has nursed a passion for motorcycles.

His nephew introduced him to the Honda Gold Wing and in the mid-1990s he belonged to a motorcycle club. The other members didn?t know he didn?t own a motorcycle. His money had gone to pay for a choir trip to Africa University.

But in 1999, he bought a bike and was 'like a kid at Christmas.' With 600 pounds beneath him, riding awakened his senses like few other things had. 'It was freedom,' he said.

After an initial ride that included a lot of screaming, Sharon also began to ride, a three-wheeler.

Last summer, the couple returned from a 5,000-mile trip to California and back to Maine. Then, on Aug. 1, at the intersection of Powder Mill and Cherry Hill roads near home, the driver of a tractor trailer truck made an illegal left-hand turn and hit Conway.

The truck rolled up against his helmet. The truck?s wheels crushed his arm. The driver backed up as Conway watched. Sharon stood by him. A helicopter flew him from the scene.

It took him three days to stabilize and Conway realized for most of that time that he would lose his arm.

'I was just so grateful to be alive,' he said. I feel like there?s something else I?m supposed to do for God.'

The Conways are working through rehab together, as they do most things in life.

While Conway was in the hospital he received a phone call from a fellow motorcycle rider named Bread Man, because he bakes bread for people.

But during the first call, he didn?t say anything. The next day, he called and sobbed. The third day he said, 'It?s me, Bread Man.'

Bread Man told Conway that he had stopped praying years ago, but hearing about the accident had reconnected him with God.

'I started Bread Man praying again,' Conway said.

The pair had a reunion in October when Conway drove his new motor home to New Jersey for a visit.

'Bread Man is six-foot three, 340 pounds. We hugged each other and cried like babies. And I kept thinking, ?God is here. God is in this. If this had to happen, if God closed one door, he?s opening others.'

Sharon is also convinced that is so. In fact, she said, she sometimes thinks about being able to reverse time, but then realizes she would never do it, she said.

She, too, feels God at work, drawing her and her husband closer and opening up opportunities for faith sharing.

'In some strange way, without the arm, there?s room for me to get closer,' she said. 'God has something wonderful in mind. You just know it.'