April 16, 2007
Prayers for V-Tech…
You may have seen this on the news, but there has been a school shooting at Virginia Tech this morning. This kind of thing is always terrible news, but this time it strikes a little closer to home. One of our sister churches NLCF (this is a campus church at V-Tech) finds themselves right in the midst of it.
The pastors there are close friends of mine and we’re working together along with a few other churches in the US on the beginnings of a new network of missional churches called Ecclesia.
Please be in prayer, not only for the entire town of Blacksburg, VA, but especially for the church and the pastors as they work through this awful tragedy. I spoke with Jim Pace, a pastor there, for less than a minute, as you can imagine he couldn’t talk long. We are unsure if any of the church members were injured. However, with a church of over 1000 people, you can imagine that this will impact them for some time.
Thanks for your prayers…
UPDATE: Jim Pace (mentioned above) was invited to appear on Larry King Live tonight. I seriously can’t think of a better person to represent the Christian community than Jim. Show starts at 9:00pm Eastern.
UPDATE #2: JR Woodward, a good friend of mine, is with the pastors at NLCF today and is giving updates from his blog. JR is a great guy who actually helped plant the church and has since moved to Hollywood to plant there. He’s on the East Coast this week so he’s able to be down with his extended community. Please continue to pray…
04.21.07
By: Rebecca Yoon
Hi, everyone,
Please pray for the Korean community in the US and for the murderer’s family who are impacted by the actions of one of their members. Many immigrant Koreans because of thier group idenification world view feel shame and guilt for the murderer’s actions. He was a member of their community who got very lost and they didn’t help him. They are very concerned that Americans will attack them in some way because of this tortured individual’s actions or that they will be profiled. They believe the family of the murderer to be uder FBI protection because of this. Pray for the murderer’s family as the shame that this incident brings could very well result in suicide. My husband is in touch with the Korean church in the area where the family reside and the church will minister to the family as soon as they can get to them. Pray that the media will quit their frenzied coverage that only serves to intensify the Korean community’s and the family’s shame. Pray for the 1.5 immigrant kids like Seung-hu who are isolated and bitter feeling that they don’t fit as Koreans or Americans and consequently our adversary can deceive them so that they buy into his lies. Perhaps you even know a few…pray for them. Pray for my husband as he ministers to the Korean community and family during this tragic time. Pray for Korean families to learn how to parent in a new culture.
With thanks,
Rebecca
04.21.07
By: Todd
Rebecca, thank you so much for sharing your experiences here. Your voice needs to be heard so badly by those of us who are not and cannot imagine what it is like to experience what the Korean and Asian American church is experiecing.
My good friend LT has shared with me some similar things (even as a Chinese American some of these same fears and feelings are there) and we will pray with you, especially in such a time as this.
Thanks again.