USA (MNN) — As Virginia Tech University continues to mourn the loss of 32 people killed in Monday's massacre, Christians are reaching out with compassion.
Christian ministries have been holding prayer meetings, counseling sessions, and lending listening ears to those who are hurting. Now International Bible Society/Send the Light ministries will be providing resources to help.
Director of Outreach for IBS/STL, Rich Blanco, says three students with Campus Crusade for Christ were killed in the shootings. He says they want to help Campus Crusade any way they can. "We basically called them up and said, 'Hey, we will give you whatever you need in the form of Scripture material.' That includes Bibles, New Testaments, Gospels of John, or other Scripture booklets that we have for disaster/crisis situations. We're just poised and ready to send them what they need in response to this tragedy."
IBS/STL has several resources to help those going through extreme stress. "Deeper Still" deals with grief. "Where the River Flows" helps people through forgiveness, and "When Your Whole World Changes" helps victims deal with their changing surroundings.
According to Blanco, these booklets are effective in situtations like the Vriginia Tech massacre. "There [are] a lot of questions that are coming up and will come up. [Issues like] evil and why would God allow things like this to happen. So we need to be ready to respond saying, 'We can't answer every specific quiestion, but we know that God can use a situation like this to get a hold of a lot of people's hearts.' At least [this may] get them thinking about spiritual things again."
Blanco says this type of material isn't overwhelming. He says, "You're not just handing them a full Bible and challenging them to work through it on their own. It's giving them daily thoughts to think about and a place to journal some of their ideas. And at the end of the booklet it just continues to draw them closer to that point of making a decision for Christ."
IBS/STL needs funding for this project. "It's just a faith step for us. We're just trusting God will provide the resources. We've already made the offer to our partners that we want to provide any and all the Scripture material that they need, and we're trust God will bring the people along to support us financially in that effort."
If you'd like to support IBS/STL's work with outreach to the victims at Virginia Tech, click here.
