Missionaries reclaim site of shooting

Young people sing, pray and forgive in Arvada hallway

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Barry Gutierrez / The Rocky

Austin Cordes, a Youth With A Mission student, prays Tuesday at the entrance to the student dormitory in Arvada. Staff members Tiffany Johnson and Philip Crouse were slain in the building early Sunday by Matthew Murray.

Young missionaries returned Tuesday to the hallway where their friends were slain almost 72 hours before and defiantly reclaimed the tragic ground in the name of God.

"Lord, we don't know why two of our dear friends died in this hallway," prayed Peter Warren, director of the Denver chapter of Youth With A Mission. "But although we don't understand why, we trust you."

The gathering in Arvada was marked by gasps and sobs as the young people slowly entered the hallway where some of them had dived for cover, and where Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, were gunned down shortly after midnight Sunday by a rampaging former mission student.

Later that day, Matthew Murray turned up 70 miles away at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where he killed two more Sunday worshippers and wounded several others.

In the crowded hallway, the students had a message for the killer.

"One, two, three," they shouted in unison. "I forgive you, Matthew!"

Some clutched hands; others thrust their palms high in praise, as they thundered out a hymn:

The enemy has been defeated

And death couldn't hold You down

We're gonna lift our voice in victory

We're gonna make Your praises loud

At the end of the impromptu service, Warren urged all students who felt able to do so to go throughout the dorm building, rededicating it to God.

Members of the media were asked not to accompany the students as they walked throughout the building. But the students could be seen through the windows.

They paused in small groups for quick hugs before a brilliantly lit Christmas tree.

Remembering the victims

* For Tiffany Johnson and Philip Crouse: Faith Bible Chapel, 10 a.m. today, 64th and Ward (next to YWAM complex), Arvada.

* Funds: Specify which fund to support and send checks to Youth With A Mission-Denver, 12750 W. 63rd Ave., Arvada, CO 80004. Funds have been established to help with burial and travel costs and also to set up a "Tiffany and Phil" scholarship.

• December 22, 2007

  9:19 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  cshel writes:

  No person is responsible for another person's choices.
  No parents are responsible for their children's choices.

  Matthew's parents may (or may not) be partially responsible for his inner vulnerability, but he remains totally responsible for his choices. Every moment of every day, he had the ability to make different choices, whether they were great parents or awful parents or (most likely) somewhere in between. Not one of us has had perfect parents; we are all respons-ible for our responses. Identical nature and nurture can produce very different outcomes, based on an individual's responses.

  It is undeniable that Matthew was very troubled. It is tragic that he chose to respond to his own very real suffering (whether internal or external, actual or perceived) in such a way as to make it worse for himself and those around him.

  We each have ample opportunity to poison ourselves with bitterness, anger and hatred. May we instead choose life, beginning with forgiveness.