BLACKSBURG, Va. (ABP) — As the sun began to set and the wind continued to howl over a wounded campus and city April 16, Virginia Tech students gathered for prayer, comfort and counseling at the school's Baptist student center.
Blacksburg, the small, quiet city that houses the university's 26,000-odd students, was even quieter than usual the night after a massacre unprecedented in American history. The gunman, who police said shot 32 students and professors and then took his own life, had also silenced the usually bustling activity on the commercial strips around the sprawling campus's edges.
One of the few signs of life at Virginia Tech was the 7 p.m. gathering at the school's Baptist Collegiate Ministry Center, a ministry of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
Although barraged with requests from national and foreign news outlets, Darrell Cook, the lead Virginia Baptist campus minister, focused his attention on the needs of students. By mid-afternoon the day of the shootings, he had invited two of the school's other major Christian campus groups — Intervarsity and Campus Crusade for Christ — to join in prayer for the surviving victims and loved ones of those who died.
Before the gathering, Cook and ministry associate Mark Appleton counseled with the students who dropped by the Baptist center in search of solace or simply for a safe-feeling place to hang out.
Members of area churches began stopping by with pizza for the students. Some of them reported that the owner of the pizzeria didn't want to accept payment for the pizzas. They insisted on paying.
Area pastors were on the scene too, bringing a sense of calm to a chaotic time. Tommy McDearis, pastor of Blacksburg Baptist Church, who is also chaplain of the local police force, spent much of the day at the hospital. The church is located directly across the street from the Tech campus, and has served as the church home for generations of Hokie students, faculty members and administrators.
When it was time for the prayer service to begin, students began to drift in, in groups of twos and threes, slowly at first and then in a virtual torrent of troubled young men and women. They grouped themselves naturally into fives and sixes throughout the center. The first question on nearly everyone's lips was “Is anybody missing?”
Most of the students had spent a large part of the day tracking down friends and acquaintances making sure they were all right. When their own groups proved to be intact, they then began to expand their circle of concern to include classmates. As the evening progressed, names of people not accounted for began to surface — referred to simply as “the missing.”
As of 6 p.m. the day of the shooting, Appleton told an Associated Baptist Press reporter that he was not aware of any students involved in the Baptist campus ministry who had been killed or injured.
Officials later identified the gunman as 23-year-old English student Cho Seung-Hui. They did not immediately release the names of any victims, although some had trickled out in media reports.
As the groups of students at the ministry center dissolved and re-formed, sharing information and concern, some students openly wept. Many prayed. All hugged. They needed, it seemed, not just to be “in touch” with friends but actually, physically to hold on to each other.
The most common reason students gave for wanting to attend the gathering was “I just wanted to be with people I care about.” Other students spoke of their need to support other students and be supported by them.
One student remarked that he had come just to be quiet. He had spent the day furiously tracking down his friends and answering his cell phone assuring family members, friends from home, and campus acquaintances that he was safe. Now, at the end of the day, he needed to sit on the floor with two of his friends and be quiet.
Greg Alexander, a collegiate ministry strategist, and Darrell Fletcher, a field strategist with the VBMB, circulated among students along with Cook and Appleton. Two crisis-ministry volunteers were there to provide comfort.
Members of Northstar Church, a Blacksburg congregation affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, were also there, helping as they could. Jennifer Kincaid, director of the church's women's ministries, coordinated the food. Matt Morris, who earned his doctorate from Virginia Tech and works as a family therapist, counseled informally. Others were simply available to listen to students when they felt like talking.
Some students spoke of how difficult it will be to return to class and how their sense of serenity and security has been destroyed. Not surprisingly on a campus renowned for its engineering program, some shared a perspective expressed by senior Kevin Prussia. He referred to the statistical unlikelihood of such an unspeakable tragedy every taking place on the Tech campus again.
As the service began in the center's chapel, those who could get in sat on the floor while others stood in the back, filling the aisle and doorways. Many others, unable to get close enough to hear or see, continued their conversations in other parts of the center.
Even after the worship time ended, students continued to talk well into the night. Many stayed at the center while others returned, usually in groups, to dorm rooms, apartments or area restaurants.
Over sandwiches and ice cream, the president-elect of Tech's Baptist Campus Student Ministries strategized with two friends about how to answer questions students will inevitably ask. Chad Wallace, a junior and member of First Baptist Church of Newport News, Va., and his friends also wondered how to best share their faith in the aftermath of the campus tragedy.
“I've seen Christians take advantage of people's grief, and I don't want to do that,” Wallace said. “I want to respect them and what they are going through, but I also want to point them to Christ.”
Cook, Appleton, Wallace and area church ministers are not sure what will happen in the aftermath of the massacre. But they said they are ready to respond with the love of Christ.
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— Robert Marus contributed to this story.