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07249 April 26, 2007
Faith, community and time
That's the remedy amid emotional return for Virginia Tech students
by Evan Silverstein
LOUISVILLE - 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."
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