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Presbyterian pastors in Blacksburg
tell of their experience and their roles
Faith, community and time are vital help
[posted here 5-2-07]
by Evan Silverstein,
Presbyterian News
Service
LOUISVILLE - April 26, 2007 – As
classes resumed Monday (April 23) at Virginia Tech, life in the small
college town of Blacksburg following last week's shootings has been a
"mixture of fear and anxiety and strength and community," according to the
Rev. Alex W. Evans, pastor of Blacksburg Presbyterian Church.
Evans has been close to the aftermath of
the deadly April 16 shooting rampage by 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, the
loner student who killed 32 Virginia Tech classmates and faculty members
before turning the gun on himself.
"In addition to a little bit of fear and
anxiety, there's been this sort of strength in community that we're going
to carry on here," Evans said. "That's really been wonderful."
The 49-year-old Evans, who also serves as a
Blacksburg Police Department chaplain, assisted authorities with the
brutal task of providing death notices to grieving family members in the
hours following the tragedy.
He and other Presbyterian leaders said this
week that they were not aware of any Presbyterians students or faculty
members being among the fatally wounded. However, at least one
Presbyterian student, who worships at Evans' congregation, was among the
injured.
Amid a shattered community in the days
since the bloodshed, Evans and other area clergy have found themselves
faced with finding new ways to help members come to terms with the
unthinkable event that happened in their midst, the irreplaceable losses,
and to somehow try to understand the violence behind the madness.
"It's been grief, beginning with shock, and
disbelief in trying to provide comfort and in trying to find a way to move
on from this," Evans said. "Not moving on, but saying you know what? This
is tough. We live in a dangerous world but we look to God for all things.
We're people of faith and hope and love and we have work to do."
Blacksburg area ministers have devoted
their sermons to the tragedy and said they've been working overtime
rewriting the book on crisis pastoral care. They said they believe from
the chaos, with time, will come healing.
"There's no manual for how to do what we're
doing right now as pastors or people," said the Rev. Linda J. Dickerson,
pastor of Northside Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, located a few
blocks from campus. "We're just sort of putting one foot in front of the
other and I hope I don't make too many mistakes. I try not to, but I'm
learning as I go."
The healing process is going to be slow,
it's going to be painful, it's going to take a lot of time, Evans said.
"There's a lot of grief to attend to," he
said. "There's a lot of people who are going to deal with this for a long
time, myself included."
Evans' congregation quickly put together a
community worship service the night of the shootings to help residents
start their journey down the long path to recovery.
"It was about just giving people a place to
come and rally and worship," he said. "We had 200 or 250 people here just
because they wanted somewhere to gather and be and do something beside
watch [the news on] TV and affirm their faith, even if it's a crying out."
When the service ended nobody wanted to
leave, Evans said. "Everybody just stood around, hugging each other and
talking and being together. That's kind of what's going on these days.
There's a real spirit of community and care and strength that's emerging
even in the midst of the pain and hurt."
Describing the mood on campus as classes
resumed, Evans said: "The students have been impressive. Some have gone
home but not many. There have been some powerful expressions of community
support and care. It's really been remarkable."
Evans said the Tech students with whom he's
spoken have conveyed a "mixture of anxiety, fear and strength." He said
the first two days after the shootings there was "just kind of a stunned
silence all over the place." But by Wednesday of last week people were
starting to want to talk about what had happened.
"They just want to share, they just want to
say, 'I knew this person,'" Evans said. "It's been this kind of evolving
mood and evolving conversation. We're going to talking about this for a
long time. That's just how it is. That's where we're going to need some
attention. That's where we're going to need some strength and energy."
Blacksburg Presbyterian ministers said they
have been buoyed in their grief by an outpouring of support and prayers
worldwide from church sessions, individuals, congregations and pastors
through emails, phone calls and letters.
The clergy said they were moved by visits
from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance responders, and words of
encouragement from the office of the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated
clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
"We're very grateful in this time to be
part of our connectional church," said Virginia Tech Presbyterian campus
minister Catherine Snyder.
As the Virginia Teach community mourns,
reports have surfaced about Cho's faith background, revealing that the
gunman and his mother once worshipped at a Korean Presbyterian church in
Virginia.
Cha Young Ho, pastor of the Korean
Presbyterian Church of Centreville, told USA Today that Cho's family had
belonged to the church and described him as a quiet boy. That report and
another story compiled by a New Jersey newspaper did not list the
Presbyterian denomination in which the Korean church was affiliated.
However, research by the Presbyterian News
Service indicated that the church is affiliated with the Presbyterian
Church in America (PCA).
Monday's return to school started with an
emotional ceremony in which a man in a Virginia Tech hat rang a bell 33
times and students and faculty released white balloons for each victim.
Then 1,000 balloons were released in the school colors, maroon and orange.
Students and staff paused for moments of
silence at the times when Cho opened fire in two campus buildings more
than two hours apart.
"They are still trying to sort out two more
weeks of school and how do you walk past Norris Hall [where most of the
shootings occurred]," Evans said of students. "That's where the fear and
anxiety comes from. But they're stepping up, it's been impressive."
"But it is heavy, heavy grief," he added.
Grief has been a common sentiment around
campus during the first week back, but there has also been a focus on
"everyone just trying to get through this thing together," according to
the Rev. Don Makin, pastor of Christiansburg Presbyterian Church in nearby
Christiansburg, VA.
"At the Tech campus there is a real
community kind of thing there," Makin said. "So there's a certain level,
the word I would use is somber. I think also there's a determined hope to
deal with this, to forge ahead."
Makin's son David, 21, is a senior music
technology major at Virginia Tech and his daughter Chelsea, an 18-year-old
high school senior, plans to attend the Blacksburg campus this fall.
Don Makin said at the time of the massacre
that his son was not in the dormitory where the bloody rampage began or in
Norris Hall, but knew at least one student who was shot and others who
knew people involved.
"He's like everybody, just processing it,"
Rev. Makin said of his son, who declined to call the Presbyterian News
Service to tell his story. "It's kind of like the resurrection of Christ,
it had never happened before. So it takes a little while to sort of say,
'What in the world has just happened?' So maybe that's the flip side of
it, that's where we connect faith-wise with all of this."
For some students, the classrooms this week
were more like places for therapy and companionship than learning centers.
Don Makin said his son's first class back
was a music class where the professor allowed students to determine the
agenda.
"The class said, 'Let's just listen to some
music and sit here and be still for a little while,'" Don Makin said.
"They did that for about half the class and then when everybody was ready
they picked up where they were and went from there."
Don Makin said most Virginia Tech students
with whom he's spoken appear to be coping with the tragedy as well as
could be expected.
"They're dealing with it," he said. "We've
had a week now and just the time itself kind of gives people the
opportunity to process it."
Several Virginia Tech students grew up in
the Christiansburg church, Don Makin said, but none were harmed during the
incident. Still, everyone is connected.
"It's one these things where even if you
don't know somebody directly you know somebody who knew somebody, it's
just a pretty close-knit thing," Don Makin said. "One of our students is
in a sorority and her sorority sister was shot."
His colleague, the Rev. Cheryl Peeples,
associate pastor of Christiansburg Presbyterian Church, has two sons
currently attending Virginia Tech: Taylor, a 21-year-old junior majoring
in animal and poultry science, and Anderson, a 19-year-old freshman with
plans to enter the engineering program.
The two were in a neighboring building
finishing class work when shots rang out.
Peeples said Anderson was more immediately
impacted then Taylor, since two of his teaching assistants were killed in
the rampage. Both young men declined to call the Presbyterian News Service
to comment.
When asked how her sons have handled the
situation, Peeples said: "They've reacted differently, just like so many
others. Anderson, because he knew more people (involved), has been more
emotionally affected. But all his engineering friends have rallied
together. Taylor, being the scientist, has gone more clinical in his
reactions."
Peeples said her sons are grateful for everything the university is
doing "to make the rest of the year at school bearable." She said both
have said "it's really been very quiet in their classes, that everybody's
still stunned." |
