A stone and flowers for each shooting victim sit on one end of the drill field . Photo: Heather Moyer, DNN

Thursday, April 19, 2007 (Day 3)

Bobb Barnes participated as an American Red Cross-Spiritual Response Team trainer for incoming volunteer chaplains. Ann Van Allen attended one of the morning training sessions.

Jim Kirk provided resources to the Associate Pastor, Susan Verbrugge at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, to help in her preparation to facilitate a meeting with members of the Virginia Tech faculty. The purpose of the meeting was to check in with each other and to plan for the resumption of classes on Monday, April 23, 2007.

In addition, Kirk provided resources from a crisis book and from the PCUSA web site to Christian Educator, Ginger Evans, who was preparing for a gathering of her youth group on Friday evening, April 20, 2007.

The three PDA-NRT members attended a meeting of New River Presbyterian Pastors cluster at Christianburg Presbyterian Church with ten clergy in attendance, including Nancy Dawson, Executive Presbyter. The open agenda quickly turned to the PDA-NRT members for a series of questions and answers. Some advice was sought and suggestions emerged from entire group in a positive collegial support atmosphere. Some fears, personal crises, and experiences emerged and were prayed over, listened to and cried with.

We then needed to return to the Virginia Tech campus for a meeting of campus clergy, at which point Ann Van Allen began her return trip home in order to fly out Friday morning for the Annual Training Conference of the National Response Team in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Anne's participation with the team was a significant factor in providing insight, compassion, and expertise in our interventions and we were fortunate for her time with us.

PDA-NRT members attended a meeting of campus chaplains/clergy, along with a student and a representative from the office of the Dean of Students, assigned to coordinate pastoral services for the university. The discussion focused on the role for campus clergy in the return of students to the campus on Monday, April 23, 2007. The student representative declared that innocently walking to morning classes on Monday just as she had done on the previous Monday morning would be intolerable — an event was to be planned for Monday morning.

All campus clergy were invited to the next meeting, along with identified local parish clergy who could not only provide support, but also be present to students upon their return as well as next Fall.