September 15, 2004
A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Olexiy Karakcheyev

On Sept. 1, all Russian children and families celebrate the Day of Knowledge. This day is the beginning of the new school year for kids. It is the time when schoolmates meet after a three-month-long summer break.

Usually, it is a joyful day that children really love. All girls and boys wear a celebrative type of school uniform and present flowers to their favorite teachers on this day. Smiles are on every child's face; joyful greetings, music and the spirit of celebration are all around.

Children were gathering in front of the school for a celebrative parade in Beslan, Russia, ready to begin a new school year, when suddenly people appeared with automatic guns and began to surround the crowd of children and teachers and push them into the building of the school. There were about 1,100 people taken as hostages in the schools' gymnasium. Most of them were children.

According to the data, 338 people died as victims of the Beslan tragedy. Out of 239 already identified corpses, 117 were the bodies of children, and about 90 bodies remain to be identified. Out of 340 hospitalized, there are 224 children. What a tragedy!

I was deeply touched by the reaction of people in America to Beslan's tragedy. And I am so grateful for the support of my brothers and sisters in Christ who came to me and to other Russian parishioners in the church on Sunday morning and expressed their feelings and compassion about the events in Russia.

Life in Beslan will never be the same. Grief and pain live on the streets of the city. There are no tears left to cry in the eyes of Beslan's residents. Parents bury their children. The bottle of mother's nursing milk stands on the stone of a child's tomb. What can be worse? There are no words that can express the feelings in this moment of tragedy and mourning.

At a time like this, I don't know what to say in my prayers; I don't have enough words to express all of what is inside of my heart. At a time like this, I want to listen to God. I want to turn my pain over to Jesus and pray in silence.

A passage from Scripture comes to my mind: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that word cannot express." (Romans 8:26)

So, at a time like this, may God's Spirit intercede for us and hear the words of our silent prayers.

United Methodist News Service
Olexiy Karakcheyev is pastor of Grace Russian United Methodist Church in Washington. He can be reached at RussianChurch@RussianDC.org. This commentary was provided by UMConnection, the newspaper of the denomination's Baltimore-Washington Conference.