AUBURN – God apparently wasn’t the Rev. Douglas Taylor’s co-pilot when the founder of the Jesus Party, a Pentecostal youth ministry in Lewiston, crashed his van into the back of his other car this week.

That 1996 Nissan sedan was driven by his 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Taylor. She had stopped the car for a school bus that was slowing on Minot Avenue and had its amber lights on at about 12:20 p.m. Monday, according to a police report.

Taylor was following too closely, the report says. He swerved, apparently trying to avoid a collision, but the right front end of his van smashed into the back of the car she was driving. The crash caused $2,000 in damage to his van and $6,000 to his car, which was towed from the accident scene on Minot Avenue.

Taylor’s wife, Sonia, was in the passenger seat of the sedan. Two of their young children were in the back seat. A 12-year-old son was in the passenger seat of Taylor’s van.

Auburn police Lt. Paul Labarre said the unusual accident – a driver colliding with a family member’s vehicle – is the first of its kind that he’s ever seen.

“I’ve never covered anything like that” in his 24 years in law enforcement, he said.

Taylor said he and his family were en route to Dunn’s Christian Campground in Oxford for a family vacation, but hadn’t gone far when the accident happened.

He was driving the “Jesus Party Holy Roller Express,” he said Thursday after the family returned home.

His daughter was using the trip to log some time for her learner’s permit behind the wheel of Taylor’s Nissan Sentra. When the school bus and the Sentra had come to a halt, he and his van kept going.

“I couldn’t stop,” he said. “I slammed on the breaks, but I couldn’t stop.”

Then he thought fast. “Instead of hitting head on and killing them all, I swerved,” he said.

He pushed the sedan right off the road, totaling the car. No one was injured.

The van’s fender had pushed into the tire, but a tow-truck operator pried it back out.

Taylor had taken out the seats in the back of the van to make room for camping gear. There was no place for his wife and three other children to sit.

Just then, a passing motorist recognized the Jesus Party van and stopped. It was David Rogers, a man who had volunteered at the Jesus Party church a decade ago. He had since moved to Oxford, knew right where the campground was and piled the rest of Taylor’s family into his minivan.

Coincidence?

“I think the whole thing is God’s intervention,” Taylor said. Not only was no one injured, the incident has brought his family closer together, he said.

He’s also thankful the damage was limited to his own vehicles.