The following is a message from the Presbytery, sent out this past Friday (October 16).

 

So many of us were enjoying a beautiful and warm Pacific Northwest fall day when the news broke of the tragedy in Bend on Thursday. Our collective hearts sank as we watched the details emerge from Silver Rail Elementary School. Here at the Presbytery, phone calls and text messages started pouring in from around the region and across the country as with words of prayer and consolation as we attempted to connect with our leaders in the area. As a presbytery, we share minister members and lay leaders in the Bend/Redmond/Sunriver region who not only serve in congregations, but also as staff at St. Charles Medical Center, which heroically moved into triage mode to both save lives and console others.

Pastor Steven Koski is the Lead Pastor from First Presbyterian Church of Bend, and earlier today (Friday) he sent out these words and prayer for both his congregation and for the wider community. We want to share those words with you as well and ask that we continue to lift up our dear friends and siblings in the Bend region to be touched and filled by the Spirit in the midst of their broken hearts.

Dear friends,

 

Our hearts are heavy with the news from Silver Rail. Some losses leave a wound that does not close, and no words can reach that place. We will not try to rush past it. This Sunday, as we gather for worship, we will hold space for our shared grief, our questions, and our love for the families who are hurting. Moments like this are exactly when we need one another, so please come, just as you are, and let us be community together.
 

A Prayer for Silver Rail:

God of all comfort,

We come to you with broken hearts,
and we know they will stay broken.

Three children of our community are gone,
children who went to school expecting a normal day,
whose names were spoken by teachers this week,
whose backpacks still hang by doors at home.
There are no words that can reach the place where this grief lives, so we bring you our silence and our tears.

 

We hold before you the families whose lives have been torn open and changed forever.
Be near to the parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends in the hours when the house is too quiet and the questions are too loud.
Hold what they cannot carry.

 

We pray for the children of Silver Rail who saw what no child

should see,
for teachers and staff who protected and comforted them,
for first responders who ran toward danger,
and for the doctors, nurses, and counselors now tending wounds of body and spirit.
Give them strength, rest, and people to lean on.

 

We confess that we are angry and afraid.
We do not understand how this keeps happening, and we will not pretend it is acceptable.
Let our grief not harden into despair. 
Let it move us toward one another and toward the work of making our children safe.

 

Jesus, you took the children in your arms and blessed them.
We trust that these little ones are held in that same embrace,
and we ask you to hold us too, because we are not okay.

 

Help us be the church this week and in the weeks to come showing up for one another grieving with those who grieve without hurrying toward comfort.
Let no one in our community feel alone in this.

 

And in our grief, help us trust what we cannot yet feel: that nothing in all creation, not death, not violence, not the deepest sorrow, can separate us or these children from your love in Christ Jesus. Death and tragedy will not have the last word. 
 

Love will.
 

Hold us in that promise until we can hold it ourselves.

In the name of Christ, whose love is stronger than death,

Amen.

 

With you in grief and in hope,

Pastor Steven

 

 

Come join us as we continue to discuss Richard Rohr's book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Come join us on Wednesday, November 4 

 

COME JOIN US!

On the 2nd Sunday of each month, following worship, Family Fellowship gathers downstairs in Calvin Hall for approximately two hours. Our Fellowship Team looks forward to seeing everyone, especially visiting families with young children. We invite guests to join us as well. 

 

Lunch will be served. If you would like to join us, please contact Roberta Schlechter, Elder of Christian Formation, for planning purposes.