“I’ve just got to believe that this is going to come to pass, that everything is going to turn out OK,” Lynch said late Monday. “It’s definitely in the Lord’s hands.”

Evan Lynch, 3, along with his mother, Cynthia, and 9-year-old brother Ryan, were injured in a two-vehicle accident Dec. 12 on Kansas Highway 16, about four miles west of Tonganoxie. Sheriff’s reports said James R. Collins, 48, McLouth, crossed the center line of the Highway, near 239th Street, and hit the Lynch vehicle head-on. Collins, who was injured, has been released from the hospital.

So have Ryan and Cynthia Lynch. In fact, Ryan planned to return this week to Karen Stephenson’s fourth-grade class, even though he’s under strict orders to curtail his activities.

But Evan still is recovering at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

“He’s not progressing as quickly as we’d like him to progress,” said Dan Lynch, a local Realtor.

Evan, who was asleep in the back seat when the two cars crashed together, suffered a blow to his abdomen.

Family members plan to meet today with Evan’s doctors, to discuss the future. It’s possible, Dan Lynch said, that the family may decide to move Evan to another hospital.

“It’s too early for us to give up,” he said. ”… I’m just not ready to resign his life to that yet.”

The family is receiving strong support from relatives — and from friends and many others in Tonganoxie.

“I just tell people to keep praying,” Lynch said. “That’s the biggest thing people can do for us.”