Amish prepare to bury shooting victims By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer
As the Amish prepared to bury four young victims of a horrific school shooting, they asked to be allowed to do so in private. National mourning of similar tragedies, such as the massacre at Columbine High School, has been enabled in part by media coverage something the Amish generally shun and specifically spurned in a statement Wednesday that pleaded for privacy. Instead, the Amish are coping with the slayings by looking inward. They are relying on themselves and their faith, just as they have for centuries, to get them through what one Amish bishop called "our 9/11."... The Amish say they are quietly accepting the deaths as God's will. "They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent ... and they know that they will join them in death," said Gertrude Huntington, a Michigan researcher who has written a book about children in Amish society. "The hurt is very great," Huntington said. "But they don't balance the hurt with hate." In just about any other community, a deadly school shooting would have brought demands from civic leaders for tighter gun laws and better security, and the victims' loved ones would have lashed out at the gunman's family or threatened to sue. But that's not the Amish way. In the aftermath of Monday's violence, the Amish have reached out to the family of the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, who committed suicide during the attack in a one-room schoolhouse. Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Among Roberts' survivors are his wife and three children.... Roberts' relatives may even receive money from a fund established to help victims and their families, said Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster services, an agency managing the donations.... Read more at Yahoo News: http://tinyurl.com/g2pum To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
