Seattle church holds Sunday prayer service following deadly shooting
Prayer service held after deadly church shooting
The community gathered at Emerald City Bible Fellowship to hold a prayer service on the first Sunday after a fatal shooting inside their very walls.
SEATTLE - The community gathered at Emerald City Bible Fellowship to hold a prayer service on the first Sunday after a deadly shooting inside their very walls.
"We’re not going to be afraid, we’re not going to become fearful and we’re not going to shrink back," said Pastor Harvey Drake. "We’re going to reclaim this space as a place where life emanates, where hope emanates and where peace emanates."
The community prayed for the family members and friends of the victim and suspect. They also prayed for love and peace to pour over the neighborhood.
The King County Medical Examiner identified the victim as Omari Wallace, 19. His mom wrote about her son on a GoFundMe page and said he was expecting a baby of his own.
Q13 News learned the shooting happened during a Community Passageways meeting that was welcoming a new cohort. The nonprofit guides and supports teens and young adults in the neighborhood who may have been affected by violence.
"There’s something going on in the life of that person that would make them take somebody’s life. Unfortunately in our culture we don’t deal with that enough and we wanted to pray for change," said Pastor Drake. "We going to march with our heads up and our hearts up and we’re going to keep doing the work that we can do to help improve the quality of this neighborhood."
Emerald City Bible Fellowship has created a Restore Fund to financially support Community Passageways. Those funds will help provide trauma counseling to the young people and staff who witnessed the shooting.
You can give online and designate your gift to the "Restore Fund."
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