School Shooting in Our Daughters' School
Sisters Reunited the Evening After the Tragedy - Big Sister was worried about her sister and school friends...
Thank you, family and friends, for your prayers and encouraging messages. Our younger daughter is safe and with us, although the school shooting today in Madison happened in her school and very close to the classroom she was in. She and many other students are quite traumatized from hearing gunshots and needing to evacuate with their shoes literally walking in the blood of their classmates and teachers. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who are grieving the deaths of their loved ones. In the midst of this terrible tragedy, we have sensed the Lord's peace and presence with us, although there was an intensely stressful hour or so - not knowing if our daughter was alive or dead - between the time I got the initial phone call until hearing our daughter's voice on a phone which was being passed around by the students sheltering in place near the school. It was a long day of asking other parents while waiting at the hospital, "Have you heard from your child/children? Are they ok?"
Although the shooting took place just before 11:00 a.m., it wasn't until about 5:00 p.m. that we finally were reunited by the police with our daughter. The police did a wonderful job today, though. The delay was simply because they were doing their jobs, being thorough, and needed to clear the scene, evacuate students and the wounded, check photo ID's of parents, matching each child with the correct parents, etc. There's a huge arduous process which we don't usually think about, but we're so grateful to all the police and hospital staff today. We've been talking with our daughter and processing, and our older daughter (an alumnus of the school, but now off at college) was quite traumatized too, not knowing if her sister was alive or dead after hearing of the shooting on the national news.
We've experienced many answers to your prayers today through supernatural peace "which surpasses all understanding" (Phil. 4:6-7). We also experienced another miracle today: we've heard the MPD or EMT's were doing a quarterly school shooting training 3 minutes or 3 miles from the school (not sure which), so many EMT's and law enforcement officers were able to get to our school unbelievably quickly, likely saving the lives of some of those injured. Please continue to pray for the entire Abundant Life and Madison community: this news has rocked our small city, but we have already seen God working for good in what was meant for evil (Romans 8:28).