This Page Is More for Columbine H.S. Tragedy
Our Usual Subject Will Return in June

Martyr for Her Faith
By Carla Crowder
Submitted by Carol Skipper

Editor's Note: This story is quite similar (almost identical) to the one here. We received them from different sources and they were published in different papers.

A Columbine killer pointed his gun at Cassie Bernall and asked her the life-or-death question: "Do you believe in God?" She paused. The gun was still there. "Yes, I believe in God," she said. That was the last thing this 17 year-old Christian would ever say. The gunman asked her, "Why?" She had no time to answer before she was shot to death.

Bernall entered the Columbine High School library to study during lunch. She left a martyr. Though lots of fellow Columbine students already were strong, vocal Christians, Bernall's confession in the face of death has inspired them to keep the faith no matter how bad it gets.

"She did something that one of the thieves did when Jesus was on the cross. She admitted she believed in Jesus Christ before she died," said Joshua Lapp, a 16-year old Columbine sophomore and member of St. Philip Lutheran Church. Crouched in the library, hiding from the gunmen, he listened as Bernall was shot to death after her confession. How would he have reacted? "I wouldn't done the same thing she did," Lapp said. He only knew Bernall from passing in crowded school hallways. But his voice was still halting as he spoke of her. "It was just...she's...after she said that, you know she's now in a better place," Lapp said.

"She died for her faith. That's why she died and that's how she lived her whole life. She was a martyr for Jesus," said Crystal Woodman, a Columbine junior and member of Bernall's youth group at West Bowles Community Church. The girls used to volunteer together, reaching out to homeless people downtown.

Woodman, too, barely escaped from the library, and only after asking God to "send your angels down." Teens like Lapp and Woodman aren't blaming God for Tuesday's violence. They're thanking Him they're alive. "Everybody that made it out, they know they made it out for a reason, or somebody was watching out for them," Lapp said. Churches where these students worship have had countless vigils, memorials and counseling sessions this week. On Thursday, another prayer session sprung out of the mud and muck at the park across from Columbine.

At first it was just a small circle. The Faith Christian School girls soccer team from Arvada had come over in their maroon sweats to pray at the site. Hundreds of people buzzed around them: friends, students and strangers hauling posters, flowers and letters to the giant memorials growing in the park. The girls prayed and the circle grew. Twenty kids, then 50. Holding hands, singing hymns. Young voices praying aloud under a cold, slate gray sky.

Matt Baker, a tough-looking kid wearing baggy jeans, a Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt and a yellow baseball cap turned backward, prayed: "If we lean toward you God, we know you're going to lean right back." The circle kept getting bigger, crowding out the television crews scrambling to go live. A hundred kids. Maybe 120. Finally everyone grew quiet, captured by a sweet, high-pitched voice. " The only way you'll get through this is through Jesus. If you don't have Jesus, get Jesus," she said. "You don't know if you have tomorrow." It was the voice of Sam Matherne, a student at Cherry Creek High School and a member of the Orchard Road Christian Center. She, too, was a friend of Rachel Scott. "My best friend died in there, don't let it be in vain," Matherne said.

Nearby, raindrops pattered on the memorials, smearing posters and letters. A letter to Bernall and to God, written on white notebook paper, stayed dry under a tent. "this sweet, innocent beautiful girl (is) one of your most precious creatures and the world has suffered a great loss."

One last note: After going through all the information given about the victims, we've found that 8 of the 11 dead were very strong Christians. We are seeing different denominations of churches working together to serve the hurting, not fighting amongst each other. God is being glorified, and healing and revival are sure to follow. The Christian dead have had their robes washed in the blood of the lamb.

Wrote this today after watching the funeral of Rachel Scott. I hope each of us can see the call for us in this tragedy!

Love,
Teri

"What Will It Take?"
By Teri Underwood

We teach them that they evolved from amoebas
That they exist by chance
That they should leave their mark however they can

We make violence a part of everything they do
From books to movies
From music to games
And rather than teach values and morals
We encourage tolerance and acceptance

Why, then, are we surprised when their hearts are cold
When their intelligence and skills are used for vengeance

Why does it amaze us that they carry guns,
Make bombs, read hate-filled literature, and
Look for any way to be remembered

We've removed prayer from schools
Devalued the family
Said there are no absolutes

We've told them value is measured in dollars and status
That convenience means more than honor
And that consequences are not a consideration

And now we sit and watch these creatures
We see them kill one another and feel no remorse
And we wonder how did this happen
What is wrong with them

The answer is clear - we let them down
We did not stand firm in our convictions
We let others dictate the values for our children
And now those values have taken our children

Where do we go from here?

"If my people, who are called by My name, Will humble themselves and pray And seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, Then I will hear from heaven, Will forgive their sin, and will HEAL THEIR LAND!"
(2 Chronicles 7:14)

Where will you go?
What will you do?
What will it take?

Thoughts from Here & There

Editor's Note: I received multiple copies of the writings below. Thanks to all!

It's therapeutic for me to share my heart with you. So much has happened in the past three days... Thanks to everyone who has written, phoned, emailed, and prayed for our community, and for the families and victims. The skies began to clear a little yesterday. It seems that even the heavens have been weeping since last Wednesday.

Rachel's funeral was a supernaturally moving event. Millions of people around the world wept with us as we mourned our losses. There were nearly 3,000 people in attendance as we witnessed so many of her friends share special aspects of her life. It was evident that her Christian testimony made a major impact on everyone who knew her. As mentioned earlier in another post, CNN aired the entire service live around the world. We were told by the CNN representative afterward that they had the largest viewing audience in their history! Possibly hundreds of millions of people around the world had an opportunity to hear the gospel as reflected in this beautiful young woman's life!

We had an opportunity to challenge the young people present to take the bloodstained torch of God's love in Christ that had fallen from the hand of Rachel and hold it high. When I asked: "Who will take up this torch?", hundreds of young people jumped to their feet and held up their arms to stand with Rachel. It was an electrifying moment. I could sense the tangible presence of God, and the angels seemed to hover over that great crowd as the youths seemed to stand as one person, and express their determination to walk as Rachel walked in Christ!!

I'm told that at that pivotal moment, young people around the nation jumped to their feet where they were watching and made that pledge. Now, we must find ways to help them to do what must be done. With God's help and wisdom, we will know.

The burial service was private. Rachel's casket was placed in a special plot dedicated and donated by the mortuary called: "The Columbine Memorial Garden." By the way, the funeral service provided everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING to Rachel's family at NO CHARGE!

As we gathered around the grave site, a lone bagpiper played a mournful yet sweet Scottish dirge. All was silent as each of us pastors uttered some word over Rachel. As I rose to speak, I was moved to observe that just as the newly fallen snow covered the ground around us, just so God's amazing grace so covers us and makes us pure and white in His sight. That this hallowed ground, broken and scarred by this grave and the saddened by the presence of the lifeless body of one so cruelly and unjustly slain, so lovely, so young, so pure, so innocent, would be covered over with such pure white snow so as to make all beneath lovely and pristine. I again felt the holy presence of my Father, and the Holy Spirit. We have sorrow and joy at the same time, for although weeping may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning.

I looked over to Rachel's mother and father. It is so heartbreaking to see a parent bury a child! An ancient proverb states that when a parent buries a child, they bury a part of themselves. Rachel's brothers and sisters wept softly, and it seemed that the angels themselves wept with us as a light rain began to fall. Oh the hope of the resurrection of the dead! How dispairing it would be if it were not for the holy promise in the scriptures that one day, and quite possibly soon, Rachel and every other saint who sleeps in death will arise from the grave!

As I said in an earlier correction, the quote originally attributed to Rachel which said: "Yes I do" when asked by the gunman if she believed in God was actually uttered by two other martyrs that fateful day. One was Cassie Burnall, who bravely died when she answered that question, and another Christian girl, Valeen Schnurr Valeen survived.
+++++++++++++++
Here's a clipping from the Rocky Mountain news dated 4/27.

"Valeen was studying in the library last Tuesday with her good friend Lauren Townsend when a teacher ran in yelling about a gunman and warning the students to take cover. Valeen and Lauren huddled together, listening to the guns and bombs in the cafeteria below.

Slowly, in dribs and drabs, she has told her parents what happened next. She saw the two gunmen come into the library and walk past the area where she hid. She thinks they threw a pipe bomb because she saw books flying.

She heard others students being shot, some pleading for their lives. The screams coming from her end of the room drew the gunmen's attention, and they came back her way, guns blazing.

When bullets and shrapnel hit Valeen, she slumped and clutched her abdomen. "Oh my God, oh my God!" she remembers saying.

"God!" one of the gunmen taunted her. "Do you really believe in God?"

Moments earlier, Valeen saw what happened when Cassie was asked the same question and answered yes.

"Val was scared to say 'yes,' " says Valeen's mother. "But she was scared
to say 'no,' because she thought she was dying."

Finally, she told the gunman, "Yes, I believe in God."

"Why?" he asked, as he stopped to reload.

"I do believe in God," she said, "and my Mom and Dad have taught me about God." She thinks she babbled on for a few seconds after that, but her memory is fuzzy. Finally she remembers crawling away, under a table.

And then the gunmen left. "She thinks crawling away may have saved her life," says her mother.

She lay under the table, holding Lauren's hand. When someone yelled "They're leaving. Everybody out!" she touched Lauren's face and said, "Wake up, its time to get out!"

"She told me, 'I tried hard Mom!" Shari Schnurr says, "But she wouldn't wake up!"

Lauren Townsend did not survive.

Valeen tightly wrapped her sweatshirt around her middle, to keep pressure on her wounds, and tried to carry Lauren out, "but she knew she was too weak," her mother says, "she had to leave her."

Written by: Rebecca Jones, News Staff Writer
+++++++++++++++

You can get a sense of the horror these children endured. It is now clear that the killers were singling out classmates that were believers. The consistency of their question, "Do you believe in God?" in the case of these two girls gives reason that in all likelihood, Rachel Scott was also confronted in a similar way.

We know that Rachel was sitting outside the cafeteria with another boy. The killers approached and shot Rachel in the leg. The boy fled, and was shot several times before he fell. He survived. The gunman then leaned over Rachel, and from the best accounts available, had a brief exchange with her. He then fatally shot her. She died instantly from the wound to her head.

Because of her well-known reputation as a high-profile believer, it is a near certainty that Rachel was confronted about her faith before she was slain. In any case, all who knew her indicate that she would have unhesitatingly answered "Yes" to such a question.

Today, the exact day one week ago that these students were killed or injured, I visited Rachel's family home and prayed with them. In Denver, at exactly the moment the attacked occurred last week, all radio stations went blank for one minute. Church bells tolled mournfully, and people stopped what they were doing and remembered.

The sun came out today. Maybe we're all beginning to heal a little. I still cry at odd times. Most of us do it seems. Funerals are going on all week as we try to bury our children and pick up the pieces once again. Rachel and the other slain children have become everyone's children. As we mourn together, we learn anew the preciousness of life, and how easily it can slip away.

Out of this disaster, we are witnessing an amazing opening of the hearts of people to the things of God. We've seen more people turn to Jesus in the past week than we've ever seen. God is doing something that is spreading all over the nation.

Tomorrow I am off to Virginia Beach to be a guest on CBN's 700 club on Thursday morning. Please pray for me that I will be supernaturally enabled to faithfully represent our community to the nation's Christians. More than this, pray that I will be able to inspire the viewers to "Take up the torch" that fell from the hands of Rachel and Cassie. I'm praying that these deaths will be the pivotal point in a new and fresh move of God among our nation's youth. Please join me. The killing will not stop with more gun laws, more psychology, more computers in the classrooms, more money for teacher's salaries, etc. Only when there is a change in the hearts of our youth can we hope to stop the slaughter. Jesus can make that difference, and we can encourage and embolden the youth of America to stand up and demand safer schools by confronting evil in their midst.

It's nearly 1:30 am and I have to get up in a few hours and catch a plane. Goodnight, and I love you.

Pastor Bruce Porter

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