White House grace for Sutherland Springs
Pastor, wife among 5 from church marking National Day of Prayer with Trump, Pence in ceremony calling for courage, renewal of life
By Silvia Foster-Frau
WASHINGTON — In the Rose Garden, a long way from the pulpit in Sutherland Springs, Pastor Frank Pomeroy and his wife Sherri felt the power of faith that’s sustained them in the darkest hours.
The Pomeroys were both away from the small Texas town outside San Antonio in November when a lone gunman in black tactical garb opened fire with an assault rifle inside their First Baptist Church, killing 26 people, including the Pomeroys’ 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle.
Now, among 200 gathered at the White House on Thursday for the National Day of Prayer, Sherri wore the silver necklace with a “Sutherland Springs Strong” pendant that she never goes without, and Frank, despite all he lost in the worst mass shooting in modern Texas history, marveled at God’s grace.
“Seeing the many blessings that the church is being brought, from the ashes to fruition, and seeing so many things that God is working on and prayers that he has answered, it is obvious to me that God had a plan from the beginning,” said Frank Pomeroy, 51.
The Pomeroys have been thrust into the spotlight since the massacre in the onestoplight Texas town. They were invited to Washington by the National Day of Prayer Task Force and were interviewed Thursday
night on a live broadcast.
President Donald Trump did not mention the Sutherland Springs shooting at the Rose Garden ceremony, but he emphasized the importance of uniting under God, a Christian tenet the Pomeroys have always embraced.
“We know that in solving many, many problems and our great challenges, faith is more powerful than government, and nothing is more powerful than God,” Trump said.
At the event, Trump announced an executive order he said would expand government grants to and partnerships with faith-based groups, and a top faith adviser to Trump said the aim was a culture change producing fewer conversations about church-state barriers “without all of these arbitrary concerns as to what is appropriate.”
‘You’re my hero’
After the ceremony, shooting survivor David Colbath, among a group of five from Sutherland Springs, nudged his way through the crowd to meet Vice President Mike Pence for the second time — the first was just days after the massacre.
“I said, ‘Do you remember me?’ And he looked at me and before I could say anything he said, ‘Of course I remember you, you’re my hero,’” Colbath said. They embraced. “He remembered praying with me,” Colbath added. “I was humbled that he remembered, and I was humbled I could talk to such a good man of God that’s leading our country.”
Colbath was joined by his adult son, Morgan. The Pomeroys attended with Sherri’s sister, Sylvia Timmons, who Sherri said has “been with me nonstop since Nov. 5,” providing constant support. The group arrived Tuesday.
They’ve spent their free time exploring downtown, observing each new sight and sound and trying to figure out what they could mean and how they fit into a larger picture of the capital.
None of them had been to Washington in recent years.
David Colbath wore a Spurs hat and said jokingly that as a Texan, he always expected a deer to pop up. Morgan Colbath, joking, asked about the nearest Whataburger.
But even 1,595 miles away in Washington, solemnity was inescapable. Between the handshakes and sightseeing, inescapable memories of those they had lost resurfaced.
When the Pomeroys exited church services Wednesday morning at the Miracle Theatre, they ran into Dr. James Dobson, the evangelical radio personality. Instantly, the couple thought of their daughter, Annabelle, who loved listening to CDs of Dobson’s book series, “Adventures in Odyssey.”
“One of her most prized possessions, that we got her every Christmas, was she had every CD of ‘Adventures in Odyssey.’ And even at 14, when she went to sleep every night …,” Frank’s voice caught. Tears sprung from his eyes as he spoke to Dobson.
“Every night she’d start ‘Adventures in Odyssey.’ And that’s what she’d play when she got up for school,” he finished.
Those CDs are in a couple of boxes in Annabelle’s closet back at their home in Seguin — mementos of her life the Pomeroys couldn’t bear to give away.
Colbath also couldn’t run from his painful memories. Sitting in that theater of deep red drapes and lantern-like lights, he broke down, stilling his quivering lips and wiping his wet cheeks with his right hand, the one that’s still damaged from the bullet that shot through his forearm.
Pastor Ronnie Floyd, president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, had urged Colbath and his fellow congregants to go back to a time when they saw God, transporting Colbath to the scene of blood and bullets, screams and smoke, on Nov. 5.
“I went right back to lying on the ground at the church and just thinking about what happened, instead of what could have happened,” Colbath said. “I lived. I lived to do these things today.”
After the White House visit, Frank Pomeroy helped lead the nation in prayer Thursday night in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
“I pray that you would protect our schools, protect our churches, protect our states, protect all of us Father. We ask you, Lord, to grant this for the sake of our children, for the sake of those to come,” the pastor said.
‘You relive it every time’
“It’s a bittersweet thing,” Sherri Pomeroy said. “We’re getting to do all kinds of things at the expense of what happened to us.”
And that’s the catch, they said. They’re honored and humbled to meet the president, to have their words of God livestreamed across the nation and to meet Christian dignitaries they never would have had the chance to meet otherwise.
But they’d rather not have any of this in exchange for having their daughter and their church family back.
“You relive it every time” you hear a recounting of what happened, Sherri Pomeroy said.
“It doesn’t get easier every time,” she said.
“It doesn’t.”