They gathered to pray for people they’d never met.
About 65 people met at the Armed Forces Memorial at Turbeville’s Village Square on Sunday morning to hold a prayer vigil for the nine victims of a tragic shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
“I was just heartbroken from the tragedy that occurred in Charleston,” said Cheryl Wingard, who helped organize the event, along with Pat Goodwin. “An then I was just so impressed, so proud to be a part of South Carolina with the response and the reactions that had taken place, and the behavior in Charleston.”
During Sunday’s ceremony, the nine victims’ names were read, and children released a white balloon in honor of each one. Suspect Dylann Storm Roof has allegedly confessed to shooting the victims, one of which was Sen. Clemanta Pinckney, the pastor of the church.
After a moment of silence for the nine victims, Goodwin led a prayer.
“My initial response to the tragedy was that it was just horrible, horrible,” Goodwin said. “Words cannot describe the pain that I felt in my own heart. Here are people at a house of God worshipping, not bothering anyone, and they take this man in for a period of time, and he pulls of the murder.”
Three living witnesses told Charleston police that Roof prayed with the Bible study group meeting Wednesday night at the church for nearly an hour before he got up and said he was shooting the black parishioners because of their ethnicity.
“You know, on social media, there’s a lot of, ‘Is it a hate crime?’ and ‘Is it a religious crime?’” Goodwin said. “It’s a crime of sin. As one state senator said, ‘We who call ourselves Christian but do not stand up for the cause of Christ and actively make a difference in our community are no different than the fellow who had the gun.’”
Wingard said she was overwhelmed by the support of Sunday’s vigil.
“I just thought that we should show not only our support for them, but our sympathy as well,” she said. “I think the vigil was well-attended, and we know where two or more gather in the Lord’s name, he is there also. We just felt there was very little we could do, but this is the one thing we can do.”
Goodwin agreed.
“This was just from word-of-mouth,” he said. “We didn’t know if we would have two people or 200. It was amazing to me to see all of the people from around our community gathering just to say, ‘We want to make a difference, Lord.’ We had folks of all faiths, and it was just amazing to me.”
