Grief, pain, hope and faith at church services following latest deadly school shooting

ATLANTA (AP) — Grief, pain, hope and faith permeated church services Sunday as an Atlanta area community’s efforts to cope with the nation’s latest deadly school shooting included prayer, hymns and a first-person account of the tragedy from a teacher who was there.

Brooke Lewis-Slamkova, who teaches food and nutrition at Apalachee High School, told the congregation at Bethlehem First United Methodist Church in Barrow County, Georgia, that she was about halfway through a class Wednesday when the lockdown alarms went out.

She recalled putting herself between the children and the classroom door and hoping to soon hear the voices of school administrators telling her it was all a drill. But she heard no familiar voices in the hallway and the realization that it wasn’t a drill soon took hold.

“As soon as they opened the door in all of their law enforcement regalia, I’ve never been so happy to see a police officer in all of my life,” she said during the livestreamed service. “They opened the door and said, ‘Get out.’”

Lewis-Slamkova said she took heart in what she witnessed after she and her students were safely away: students comforting each other and sharing cellphones with those who needed to contact loved ones, parents arriving at the scene and offering help and transportation to students whose parents hadn’t arrived, “parents loving on their children like we should love our children every day.”

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“It’s times like these that words seem to fail,” the Rev. Frank Bernat said at an earlier service at the church. “I’ve reached down for the words all week and they’re just not there. And I know that many of you are in the same boat — overcome with emotion.”

Not far away, at the similarly named Bethlehem Church, pastor Jason Britt acknowledged the shock of Wednesday’s school violence.

“Many of us in this room are deeply connected to that high school,” Britt said. “Our students go there. Our kids are going to go there, our kids went there, we teach there.”′

It’s understood that nobody is immune from tragedy, Britt said. “But when it happens so publicly in our own community, it jars us.”

Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with murder over the killing of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, outside Atlanta, on Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, is accused of second-degree murder for providing his son with a semiautomatic AR 15-style rifle. Both remain in custody.

Sunday’s church services took place not only against the backdrop of the shooting itself, but also as information about the teen suspect, his family and developments before the shooting were becoming public.

The teen suspect’s mother had called the school before the killings, warning staff of an “extreme emergency” involving her son, a relative said.

Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him.

Brown provided screen shots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before gunfire is believed to have erupted.

Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.

At the Methodist church on Sunday, Bernat said members and church officials were trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, while acknowledging the tragedy and providing comfort. He invited congregants to a planned Sunday night service. “We’re going to be together and cry together and lean on each other,” he said.

Lewis-Slamkova, a lifelong member of the church who said she had taught classes to some of its members, expressed continued faith. “God is still in control,” she said. “And love will prevail.”

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Associated Press Writers Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Trenton Daniel in New York contributed to this report.