For Christians around the world, Christmas is the joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus. To affirm their beliefs — that God is present and hasn’t abandoned them — the faith community at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, is embracing its holiday traditions just days after a deadly shooting there.
“When people say, ‘Where is your God?’ He is more evident now than he’s ever been to us,” the Rev. Sarah Karlen told The Associated Press. “I’m sure the phrase ‘Prince of Peace’ and ‘God with us’ is going to be leaned into a little more this year.”
Karlen is a pastor at City Church, which in the late 1970s founded the school where she’s also the theater teacher. This weekend, the church will hold the funeral of a 14-year-old student, Rubi Patricia Vergara, killed Monday when another student opened fire, also killing a teacher and wounding several others at the school on the same campus.
“When we say that God is with us, especially here at Christmas time — when we say, you know, Emmanuel ‘God with us,’ that he came to Earth to be with us — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt each and every one of us here at City Church would say that in a very new way,” Karlen added.
Decked in holiday light displays, including Christmas trees and a Nativity scene, the evangelical, nondenominational church with over 1,200 members also hosted a vigil service Tuesday.
Then, drawing from Scripture and particularly the Book of Job, pastors addressed the challenge of reconciling faith in a loving God with his allowing great suffering to occur.
Karlen also challenged some of the taunts on the school’s social media that questioned its religious beliefs. To the assembly’s applause, she repeatedly affirmed God’s presence in the midst of the grieving and the weariness.
“None of us on our staff are saying that we understand why or how something happened. But we do understand that God sees us, sees things very differently than we do,” Karlen said later.
Police are continuing to investigate why Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15, attacked the school before fatally shooting herself. While dozens of school shootings have happened across the U.S. in recent years, the vast majority are carried out by teenage boys and young men.
Barbara Wiers said faith is helping teachers, students and families make peace with the possibility they will never have complete answers.
“There may never be sense made out of this senseless tragedy. But. God, right? God understands, and God was there, and God is still here,” said Wiers, the school’s director for elementary education and communications. “Ultimately, it’s not about man’s judgment, although there’s going to be all of that — because of the legal system and how that plays out. But God’s just judgment will reign. And we trust him for that.”
The school remains closed as staff work to repair the physical damage so that it won’t retraumatize teachers and students immediately upon their return, Wiers said. Safety and wellness protocols are also being reviewed.
But on Christmas Eve, City Church plans to hold caroling and candlelight services, hoping that the community will draw comfort from the familiar traditions.
“We know this is a long road for all of us, but the start is to be in the presence of God with one another, and to hug one another, and to sing together, to pray together,” Karlen said.
Other churches affiliated with the school, as well as the broader community in Madison, quickly came together to help, from alumni starting food drives to evangelical ministries sending chaplains to pastors sitting up with those hospitalized.
“Healing will come slowly, but they will not be left alone,” said the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, whose member organizations include about 2,000 churches and 1 million Christians.
Abundant Life Christian School is part of Impact Christian Schools, a network of private educational institutions that welcome families regardless of their creed, said Impact’s executive director Chuck Moore.
Moore said he hoped the shooting’s occurrence so close to the holidays wouldn’t forever tie Christmas with tragedy for the community.
“Even in the midst of awful, it’s still a time we can rejoice,” Moore said. “We can focus our celebration on who Christ is.”
Already teachers at the school have talked about Jesus and faith in “every classroom, every subject, all day long, because God isn’t siloed to Sunday,” Wiers said. And that focus will continue when the school reopens sometime in January.
“We’re changed. Our family is changed. But God hasn’t changed. He didn’t move. He hasn’t been altered at all,” Wiers said. “And the message hasn’t changed. God is good. God is good all the time. He is faithful and he is true. And while we are brokenhearted, he’s going to walk us through this.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Supporters hold candles during a candlelight vigil Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, outside the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, Wis., following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School on Monday, Dec. 16. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
On Dec. 26, 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of Sumatra, causing a massive wave that devastated Asian coastal communities across thousands of miles.
Some 230,000 people died as the tsunami leveled remote villages, ports and tourist resorts in Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, among other countries.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of a disaster that's still vividly remembered in the region, here's a look back at the aftermath. In these photos, a resident of a fishing village in India's Tamil Nadu state contemplates the remains of her house as fires continue to burn in her village. In Thailand, dozens of bodies are lined up at a Buddhist temple, and a young Swedish boy carries a sign listing family members he hasn't seen since they were swept out to sea from their beachfront hotel.
In Sri Lanka, villagers search for the dead among derailed train cars, lighting fires to cremate those they find. And in Aceh, Indonesia, the worst-hit area nearest the quake's epicenter, people search for survivors and food in towns that have been largely reduced to rubble.
Today, many coastal communities have rebuilt, and new early warning systems are in place that could give people time to get to shelter. But the true toll of these events will never be known for certain.
A doll is erected on pole by a family in memory of their child who was killed by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, as a survivor works, background, at Cheddi Palayan, about 230 kilometers (144 miles) east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Jan. 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)
Relatives of victims who were killed by Tsunami waves grieve at the site of a mass burial in Cuddalore, India, Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Gurinder San, File)
Jakfar, 41, looks at the destruction from the second floor of his house in Keudah village in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Monday, Feb. 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
Hernani, center, weeps holding a relative after the bodies of her daughters, victims of the 2004 tsunami, were found in Lampulo, Aceh, Indonesia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2005. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati, File)
People who lost family members to the deadly tsunami, try to identify them from photos taken before their mass burial and later posted on boards to help families identify their dead, at Vailankanni, near Nagapattinam, India, Saturday Jan. 8, 2005. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, File)
An elephant which belongs to forest ministry removes debris Monday Jan. 10, 2005 in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
A young Tamil boy stops crying after receiving lunch from local aid workers at a makeshift refugee camp, Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005, in the village of Palai, just outside of Kilinochchi in north eastern Sri Lanka. (AP Photo/Wally Santana, File)
Islets are formed of what used to be part of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province in northwest of Indonesia, as seen from a commercial plane on Thursday Dec. 30, 2004 following Sunday's earthquake-triggered tsunami. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
HOLD- An Acehnese man smokes a cigarette near a house on which a fishing boat landed after it was swept away by tsunami in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
Destroyed houses are seen in this aerial view of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh province, Indonesia, which was flattened by tidal waves, on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2005. (AP Photo/Dudi Anung, File)
An unidentified woman cries after tidal waves destroyed her house on the coastal areas in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)
A street is littered with damaged vehicles and debris after the area was hit by tidal waves at Patong beach in Phuket, Thailand, Sunday December 26, 2004. (AP Photo/Karim Khamzin, File)
The Rahmatullah Lampuuk Mosque stands intact after the 2004 tsunami hit the area in Lhoknga, near Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Jan. 30, 2005. (AP Photo/Greg Baker, File)
A survivor rummages through the debris at the commercial area of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province in northwest Indonesia, Dec. 31, 2004.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
Refugee children try to catch relief goods tossed from an Australian military helicopter in a rice paddy in Lampaya, outskirts of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Jan. 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
Villagers walk with their belongings past two boats that were washed ashore by tidal waves at Nagappattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Dec. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, File)
Sitting on a boat, a woman watches debris of destroyed homes being burned at the fishermen's village in Nagappattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Monday Jan. 3, 2005. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, File)
A young tsunami victim's father cries along with other family members as he holds the body of his son at the hospital in Galle, Sri Lanka, Dec. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)
Kusol Wetchakul offers prayers for the soul of his sister Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004, at dawn along the beach near Khao Lak, Thailand. Wetchakul's sister was swept out to sea and believed drowned as she sold goods to tourists on the popular tourist beach just north of Phuket. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)
Survivors retrieve a cart from the rubble of the devastated commercial district of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, Friday, Dec. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
Tsunami victims wait for a airplane to be evacuated from Nicobar, in India's southeastern Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)
HOLD- Rani Amma, 50, grieves for her family who died in the Dec. 26 tsunami, as she sits near a small temple she made at the spot where her home once stood, at Nagappattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2005. Amma lost seven family members which include four granddaughters, one son, one daughter and one son-in-law. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
A boat passes by a damaged hotel, at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, in Thailand, Dec. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett, File)
Twin girls hold towels to their faces to fend off the smell of decomposing bodies lying on streets in Hambantota, southern Sri Lanka Thursday Dec. 30, 2004. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel, File)
Buddhist Monks from the Asoke community of Bangkok, walk past damaged fishing boats in the tsunami destroyed village of Ban Nam Khem, Thailand, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)
Tsunami victims at a relief camp reach for rice packets being distributed in Nagappattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Friday, Dec. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan, File)
A family makes its way back home accross strewn debris at Nagappattinam, in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Friday Dec. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, File)
Karl Nilsson of Lulo, Sweden, poses with a sign saying his parents and brothers are missing, in this Dec. 28, 2004, in Phuket, Thailand. The young boys parents were swept out to sea Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004, when the tsunami struck their beach hotel just north of Phuket, Thailand. (AP Photo/David Longstreath/FILE)
Workers, searching for bodies remaining unburied in Mullaitivu following Sunday's tsunami which completely destroyed the village, walk away from a fire which they started to burn the bodies of two victims Friday, Dec. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)
An aerial view of Phi Phi island in Krabi province, southern Thailand Friday, Dec. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File)
An Acehnese woman clings to floating debris while being swept by a tsunami Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004 in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province in northwest Indonesia. A man tried to rescue her but both victims were swept by the current and died as witnessed by the photographer. (AP Photo/Frans Dellian, File)
An aerial shot taken from a helicopter shows villagers search for the missing along railroad tracks of a packed train that was swept off the tracks by waves at Telwatte, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Dec. 29, 2004. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)
Thais walk outside a Buddhist temple where more than 1,000 bodies have been gathered, near Takuapa, Thailand, Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)
Paliyamma grieves on returning to her damaged house at a fishermen's colony hit by tsunami, in Nagappattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Friday, Dec. 31, 2004. Paliyamma lost seven members of her family. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan, File)
