BLACKSBURG, Va. (BP) — Students, faculty, and their families gathered on the campus of Virginia Tech University to mourn the day after a gunman killed 32 students, including three involved in the school’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry. It was the bloodiest mass shooting in U.S. history.

President Bush, with his wife Laura, attended the public convocation at Cassell Coliseum “with hearts full of sorrow” on “a day of sadness for our entire nation.”

The Virginia Tech family also heard from Gov. Tim Kaine, university President Charles Steger, and representatives from the Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian communities on campus. The thousands in attendance at the coliseum and in overflow seating at the football stadium recited the Lord’s Prayer and closed with emotional chants of the school cheer “Let’s go Hokies.”

In an email circulated to Southern Baptist collegiate ministers April 17, Darrell Cook, campus minister at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at Virginia Tech, said, “We have been overwhelmed by the support and prayers of our campus ministry family around the nation ... We are doing all we can here to help students walk through the first steps of grief.”

 

Assessing needs

Jim Burton, director of volunteer mobilization for the North American Mission Board, told Baptist Press about 300 students gathered at the BCM Monday night for a prayer and worship service.

The BCM is sponsored by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, and two chaplains were on site at the campus ministry building to assist students in the grief process, Burton said. The chaplains were continuing to assess the needs, including how to support churches as the school’s 26,000 students disperse to their hometowns, he reported.

Burton also told BP that the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia sent a disaster relief kitchen unit to Blacksburg and had parked on the street next to the dorm where the first shooting occurred. They were preparing 200 meals for Bush’s entourage and planned to feed about 250 law enforcement officers later that night.

“The spirit of cooperation between the two Virginia conventions has been exemplary and is very reflective of the Baptist spirit,” Burton said.

Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, expressed his “deepest concern and prayer support for the students and faculty of Virginia Tech as well as for the townspeople.”

“When tragedy like this occurs, sometimes people look to the Lord, and I pray that all will do so and find the comfort that only He can bring to their hearts,” Page said in a statement to Baptist Press. “At the same time, Southern Baptists stand ready to help in any way that we can to assist and encourage these victims and their families. We are all shocked and horrified at this egregious expression of violence. Our prayers and love are with all those affected by this tragedy.”

The gunman was identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English at Virginia Tech. Cho was a legal immigrant from South Korea.

The Chicago Tribune said he left a note in his dorm room railing against “rich kids,” “debauchery,” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus. Acquaintances told authorities Cho’s behavior in recent weeks had become increasingly violent and erratic, and his creative writing pieces in English class were “disturbing.”

Cho opened fire in a dormitory around 7:15 a.m. Monday, killing two people. Two hours later, shots were fired in multiple classrooms in the school’s engineering building before the gunman killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

 

Related stories:

"Some were praying to a God they didn't even know."

After Blacksburg's darkest day, GBC schools give a second look at campus safety