Brown graduate student Maddy Wachsmuth’s first notice of an active shooter on campus came from a GroupMe chat with other Christians. Even before students received official alerts, texts streamed in: “Urgent. Take cover. This is not a joke,” she described.
“It was scary getting messages the whole time,” she told CT. Some updates came from a student barricaded in a classroom. Wachsmuth prayed as she monitored the chat of nearly 300 Christian students and alumni. Later, students gathered at campus ministry leaders’ homes to pray, cry, and eventually eat takeout.
Three days after the shooting, the campus is much emptier between canceled finals, winter break, and a gunman still at large. But faith leaders, pastors, and Brown spiritual faculty are showing up, providing care for those who’ve remained after the attack that claimed the lives of two students and injured nine others.
On Monday, near the shooting’s site, a sign attracted passing students: “Do you need a hug? Prayer? Coffee, a snack? To talk to a trauma pastor or therapist? Place to stay? A ride to the airport? Or anything else? Let us know!”
For hours, therapists, pastors, and other Christians prayed with students and handed out hot drinks. Over the weekend, nearby Sanctuary Church put together 100 care packages for social workers and frontline responders. “Christians [shouldn’t] run from a crisis. They run into it,” said Andrew Mook, pastor of Sanctuary. “[We’re] trying to embody that as much as we can.”
When Mook heard about the active-shooter situation unfolding, his thoughts flew to the dozens of Sanctuary members who might be in harm’s way. Over the next 15 hours, he and other church members reached out to as many of the students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty, and staff they knew. They set up a virtual prayer room and conversed there all night.
Mook learned later that the shooting left one of Sanctuary’s student attendees in critical condition. Another had a close escape from the lecture hall targeted by the gunman. Students spent the night in lockdown in dormitories or barricaded in university buildings. On Sunday, Sanctuary held a service after consulting with the mayor’s office. After the message, one Brown student shared her harrowing experience with the congregation.
Other local ministries have also been busy responding. “Just about everyone knows someone directly connected to those who were in the classroom when the shooter arrived,” said Jarrod Lynn, a chaplain at Brown with Athletes in Action, a campus ministry focused on student athletes. “The sadness [and] weight of it all is slowly starting to settle in,” he said.
Christian Union, a campus ministry that serves Ivy League schools, routinely hosts events and makes its ministry center a place students can grab a nap, a snack, and a listening ear. Both murdered students had visited, and one, sophomore Ella Cook, was also a member of Christian Union.
Cook “exuded Christ,” said Kimani Smith, a multisite ministry director with Christian Union. “She was someone who was a sincere believer, and her walk showed it.” The pastor of Cook’s home church, an Episcopal congregation in Birmingham, described her as “incredibly grounded and generous and faithful” and “a bright light.”
Recently, Cook had also started volunteering at a nearby crisis pregnancy center, according to Jared Cowgur, the lead pastor at BridgePointe Church, which partners with the center. “The tragedy hits close to home,” he said. “The staff at that ministry are understandably shaken.”
The other student killed was freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a scholarship recipient and naturalized citizen from Uzbekistan. Umurzokov was Muslim, Smith told CT, but “he was open to hearing about Christ.” Their encounters, preserved in snapshots in Smith’s camera roll, now strike him as a “divine moment of God allowing us to be a witness.”
Pastor Jacob Van Sickle of Sacred City Church learned about the shooting through a text from a Brown student while at his church’s annual Christmas party in downtown Providence. The party turned into a prayer vigil.
Around 10 to 20 percent of local churches’ populations are college students, most from Brown, Van Sickle estimated, and Cook had visited his church several times. That heartbreaking recognition “brought it closer to home,” he said. “Our students will be mourning in a different way.”
Lead pastor Scott Axtmann at Renaissance Church in the Riverside neighborhood is still hearing from members who had to shelter in place, were in the building just minutes prior to the shooting, or personally knew the victims. On Sunday, he went ahead with his prepared message, which focused on how Christ suffers alongside humanity.
“He understands. He sympathizes. He suffers with us in our pain,” Axtmann preached. “It’s easy to feel alone in our pain, but the truth is that we are not alone. God is with us. … He draws near to us in our suffering.”
Though the shooter was still at large and she was running on little sleep, Brown student Wachsmuth felt compelled to go to Sanctuary as usual on Sunday. “It’s weird that we’re in this season of Advent,” she said, “longing for the New Jerusalem and longing for every tear to be wiped away. We’re feeling that even more.”
