It would have been difficult to have shared such a special evening and not been moved.

Black ministers. White ministers. Baptists. Methodists. Episcopalians … It didn’t matter. All joined in a special interfaith community prayer service last week at Beulah African Methodist Episcopal Church on Farmville’s Main Street to remember and to pray for the families of nine victims slain in Charleston, S.C.

There is common ground in hurt.

And there was common faith in Christ.

Prayer after precious prayer was offered for the occasion, and the church, built 115 years ago, saw beautiful, soft hues of a beaming sunset through the blue and pink sanctuary glass. The president of Longwood University was there. The mayor of Farmville was in attendance. The county administrator of Prince Edward represented. Each spoke, as did a representative from U.S. Rep. Robert Hurt’s office and the vice president of the Prince Edward Branch of the NAACP.

And the ministers. An all-star group from the area, each joining the mixed congregation in prayer. At one point, they clasped hands to share in a moment of prayer. If the goal of the shooter had truly been to divide a country, it wasn’t working.

For here, there was faith and hope.

District Elder Betty Jones opened the evening up with a chorus: “Oh, how I love Jesus,” she sang, as the congregation soon joined in the familiar hymn. “Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.”

“These things I have spoken unto you,” she read, “that in me, ye might have peace. In the world, ye shall have tribulation: but be of [good] cheer; I have overcome the world.” — John 16:33

In this building, hundreds of miles from Charleston, there was unity. An attack on part of the body was a hurt to the whole. In the midst of the tragedy, there was hope as well as praise for how Emanuel AME had responded — though hurting, how they have been able to forgive.

Come, ye disconsolate, where’re ye languish, Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel. Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. — Come Ye Disconsolate

The message in hymn and word is true for Charleston, and is also true for hurting people and hurting communities across the country.

Beulah AME’s the Rev. Matthew Shannon had a glow on his youthful face with final “Amens” having been said and all but a few gone. It all came together, he explained, in about 24 hours. And he was pleased with the turnout, offering that they were “standing up to be together yet once again. Despite what the enemy does, the greater good will prevail.”

Indeed.

“I have to truly say that it brings us together,” said Elsie Foster of Farmville of the service, standing on the sidewalk after it was over. “It’s time for healing and, I tell you, what happened in Charleston truly is an act of God where He showed that forgiveness, you can have it. You can truly achieve it. You can truly achieve it.”

Rob Chapman is a staff writer for The Farmville Herald. His email address is rob.chapman@farmvilleherald.com.