After quite a bit of soulsearching why I wanted to go and find the schoolhouse where a 32-year old man shot ten young Amish girls, killing five of them and seriously injuring another five, I decided to take a ride this afternoon. I needed a frame of reference for what had happened so close to where we live.

Nickel Mines, where the horrible scene to the left developed, is about 25 miles from where we live, towards Lancaster. It is in the beautiful Amish country of Pennsylvania, where horse buggies abound on the streets and where blonde children - the boys with bowl hair cuts - play in yards and peek out the back of buggies while their dad is guiding the horse along narrow roads.

It took me some time to find the road where the school is located. I had another road in my mind, but when I saw the road sign, I realized that it must be down a particular country road. And most certainly, after a brief bend in the road, I passed the now boarded up school house. I imagined it larger than it actually now looked, and I also somehow had placed it farther back from the road in my head. It was very small and much closer to the road than I had thought.

Policemen were making sure no cars stopped, so I simply saw in passing that the door and windows and the outside bathrooms were boarded up.
The whole time while I was searching for the actual location, I was praying for the families that have been impacted by this, both in the Amish community and in the community around them.

I also prayed for Charles Carl Roberts IV's family. How they must hurt...
We discussed in church today how he came from a Christian background, and how his mom actually works at Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, a Christian theater. Roberts' wife had come back from a Bible study the morning her husband decided to take his life and take five others with him.

I don't know if Charley Roberts knew God. I have to think he had given his life to him in some Vacation Bible School or Sunday School class. But what happened? We spoke on Thursday in my women's Bible study group about making sure to seek professional counseling when we run into situations that are not solvable through prayer and fasting. I couldn't agree more with this approach. God is a God of miracles, but He has also given us medicines and doctors who can help us.

I believe we can all learn so much from the way the Amish community has responded to this tragedy. CNN reported, that Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the shooting scene, told The Associated Press that the victims' families will be sustained by their faith. He was quoted as saying, "we think it was God's plan, and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going. A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

Another quote from CNN says: "A grieving grandfather told young relatives not to hate the gunman who killed five girls in an Amish schoolhouse massacre, a pastor said on Wednesday. "As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was making a point, just saying to the family, 'We must not think evil of this man,' " the Rev. Robert Schenck told CNN."

May we learn, learn, learn to truly love our neighbor as ourself.
And may the towheaded children of Lancaster County experience the love of God like never before.
May He put a smile back on their serious faces.
posted by Elke at 10:42 PM