BLACKSBURG, Va. (BP)—Five of the 32 victims in the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech University had ties to Southern Baptist ministries.

The five are Jarrett Lane, 22, a member of First Baptist Church in Narrows, Va.; Rachel Hill, 18, a 2006 graduate of Grove Avenue Christian School, a ministry of Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond, Va.; Nicole White, 18, a junior majoring in international studies and a member of Nansemond River Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va; Brian Bluhm 25, who was active in the Baptist Campus Ministries at Virginia Tech and reportedly attended Northstar Church in Blacksburg; and Lauren McCain who attended Restoration Church-Phoebus Baptist in Hampton, Va.

JARRETT LANE

"He was here every Sunday. This past Sunday he even took up the collection. He was one of the ushers," John Sheally, church secretary at First Baptist in Narrows, told Baptist Press.

Lane, Sheally said, grew up in the church, and other members of his family including his mother and grandmother were faithful members of the church too. He said the congregation averages 100 to 125 each Sunday, so it's a close-knit church.

"All of us are still deeply stunned and in shock over the loss of our son, grandson and brother, Jarrett Lee Lane," his family said in a statement. "He was a fun-loving young man, full of spirit. He had a caring heart and was a friend to everybody he met, both at Virginia Tech and here in Narrows. We are leaning on God's grace in these trying hours and appreciate all the prayers, expressions of sympathy, and thoughts."

Lane was a senior civil engineering major at Virginia Tech, and news reports indicate he had been accepted into a graduate program at the University of Florida, where he was granted a full ride and a graduate assistantship to study coastal engineering.

"Here I am, 42 years old, and I haven't accomplished near the things that he has in just 22 years of life," Robert Stump, principal of Narrows High School, told the Baltimore Sun.

The valedictorian of his high school class, Lane was a noted athlete and a friend to many, the Sun said. Stump, who had known Lane well, made a commemorative display in the high school lobby of sports jerseys, yearbooks and a trombone Lane had played in the band.

"To find a picture, he simply walked down the hall and removed the one that has hung in the school for four years, hailing Lane's achievements there," the Sun reported.

In the town of 2,000 people 30 miles west of Blacksburg, maroon and orange ribbons hung in Lane's honor after his death, and a bridge was draped with a sheet that said, "We miss U Jarrett," the Sun said.

Though one resident told the newspaper, "He was our star," Stump said Lane did not seek attention.

"He was not one that wanted to be in the spotlight. He was one who would rather put the school in the spotlight," the principal said.

Despite the accolades for his high school successes, Lane wrote on his Facebook.com page that he was foremost a Christian. Others agreed.

"What summed him up best to me was that he was a good Christian," Jenny Martin, a Narrows resident, told the Sun. "He wasn't afraid to declare his faith in front of his friends. Do you know how special it is to find a young person like that? Someone even the adults could learn from?"

Funeral arrangements for Lane were being handled by Riffe's Funeral Service in Narrows, which released a statement to the media.

"Even though Jarrett took great pride in being a Hokie and loved his years at Virginia Tech, he always made time for his friends and family in Narrows," the statement said, according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in West Virginia. "Jarrett spent numerous weekends in his hometown visiting family, attending First Baptist Church where he was a member, and playing sports with high school friends.

"He had an amazing ability not to take himself too seriously, but always took life and friendships seriously. He always took the time to talk to people and care for them while sharing God's love," the statement said.

RACHAEL HILL

Hill, a freshman at Virginia Tech, was attending a French class at Norris Hall when she died at the hands of gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

"Rachael was an incredible witness for Christ, the love of Christ shone through her to others," Clay Fogler, the school's administrator, wrote in an e-mail to Baptist Press. Grove Avenue has an enrollment of about 260 students.

Fogler gave BP a copy of a letter he sent April 17 to members of the Grove Avenue school community in which he noted Hill's "beauty, intelligence, poise, leadership, and other wonderful traits."

"We offer our prayers, spiritual support, and love to her parents and relatives as they go through this tragedy," Fogler wrote. "Any parent would have counted it a privilege to have called her their daughter."

Hill was the only child of Alan and Tammy Hill of Glen Allen, Va., the Richmond Times-Dispatch said.

"I was her principal for a year and had worked with her for several years," Martha Isaacs, a former employee of the school, told Baptist Press. "She was a wonderful young lady, very bright, very gifted. She had a close relationship with her parents and her fellow students here. She was very spiritually mature. She loved the Lord and was just an asset to our school."

In his letter, Fogler said Hill was "perpetually prepared" and one of her favorite verses was Song of Solomon 8:5, which says, "Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"

"Rachael saw herself as the one coming out of the wilderness and needing to lean on her Savior more and more," Fogler wrote. "The world has lost one of its brightest prospects, but the Lord is glorified through the Daughter of the King that she is, the life that she lived, and the impact Rachael had on others in the name of Jesus Christ."

Some say the quote from Christian author C.S. Lewis that Hill submitted for her senior yearbook was almost prophetic. It said, "God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain."

Mark Becton, pastor of Grove Avenue Baptist Church, told The Washington Post the school plans to retire Hill's jersey from her time on the school's volleyball team. She was honored last year as sportswoman of the year, he said. The Times-Dispatch reported that Hill was interested in biology though she had not yet declared a major at Virginia Tech, and she was an excellent piano player.

A memorial service for Hill aired live from Richmond, Va., on FamilyNet Television, the Southern Baptist network, April 21, from Grove Avenue Baptist Church, according to a news release. Hill's parents, several ministers and seven of her schoolmates were among those who spoke.

NICOLE WHITE

White was a strong Southern Baptist who had a passion for evangelism and helping other people, her youth pastor said after news broke that she was among the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.

At a news conference April 19, White's pastor recounted the moments when her parents, Mike and Tricia White, first heard about the April 16 shootings. After unsuccessful attempts at reaching her by cell phone, they called her friends, who were unable to locate her. Then they learned that White was scheduled to be in a German class in Norris Hall at the time the gunman opened fire.

"After exhausting all attempts to locate their daughter remotely, Mike and Tricia, along with their son, were driven to Blacksburg by a friend," Tim Piland, pastor of Nansemond Baptist Church, said at the news conference. "They arrived late Monday evening and were placed in the Tech Inn along with other student families."

Early Tuesday morning, Gary Vaughn, the associate pastor for students at Nansemond Baptist, received a phone call from the Whites indicating their daughter was most likely one of the victims. Vaughn and Piland then drove to Blacksburg to be with the family.

"I've known her for about 10 years," Vaughn told Baptist Press. "She was a girl who had great relationships. She loved people, and people loved her. She was part of a FAITH evangelism team, and evangelism was a passion of hers—defending and sharing her faith."

Vaughn said White wasn't someone who judged people by their appearances but instead wanted to take the time to get to know them. Consequently, she had a variety of friends, he said.

"In that process, she was very faithful in sharing about her relationship with Christ. That's probably the biggest thing about her," Vaughn said.

In high school, White served as an EMT with the Smithfield Volunteer Rescue Squad and was a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the local YMCA. In Blacksburg, she volunteered at an animal shelter and at a battered women's shelter.

"She loved helping people. She was just an amazing girl," Vaughn said. "I think the thing I remember the most about her was her humor. She loved to laugh and had a great laugh."

Piland said White's family was in the process of identifying her body and waiting for her to be released for burial.

"The White family also wants you to know that even in the midst of unimaginable pain and tragedy, they have been sustained by their faith," Piland told reporters. "The promise given by the Lord Jesus Christ to comfort in the midst of sorrow has been and is being fulfilled in their lives. Both Gary and I can attest to the strength they have received."

BRIAN BLUHM

Bluhm was just weeks away from graduating with a master's degree in water resources after also earning an undergraduate degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech. He was attending a class in advanced hydrology in Norris Hall when he was killed, The Post reported.

Bluhm was active in the Baptist Campus Ministry at Virginia Tech, and he was known for his sense of humor and his exceptional enthusiasm for the Hokies and the Detroit Tigers baseball team. Bluhm was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, spent some of his childhood in Detroit and moved with his parents to Louisville, Ky., when he was 7, the Detroit Free Press reported.

His passion for the Tigers led Bluhm to help found a blog dedicated to the team, Motownsports.com. On Monday, several people posted messages to the site, asking if Bluhm had been safe when the shootings occurred, the Free Press said, but he didn't answer. As a tribute to the Tigers fan, a Detroit announcer asked for a moment of silence for the shooting victims—including Bluhm—before the team's game against the Kansas City Royals Tuesday night.

"We know he was very active in the online community," Rob Matwick, vice president of communications for the Tigers, told the Free Press. "We felt it was appropriate that we at least remember him with a moment of silence."

A post left on Bluhm's blog April 17 characterized Bluhm as "intelligent, thoughtful, considerate, and polite in all of his postings."

"Anything he wrote, you wanted to know what he was saying because he was always right," the poster, Bill Ferris, said, according to the Free Press.

Bluhm had accepted an engineering job in Baltimore and secured an apartment there with plans to move in July, The New York Times said.

"He deserved every good thing in the world, and we are all shocked and deeply saddened to have lost him," Hannah Barnhill, one of his friends, told The Times.

LAUREN MCCAIN

McCain, 20, a freshman international studies major at Virginia Tech, was so loved at her church, Restoration Church-Phoebus Baptist in Hampton, that family and friends began gathering there to wait for news about her late Monday night. Her parents had gone to Blacksburg, and by Tuesday at noon there was no official word on her.

As about 50 people gathered in the church sanctuary, a cell phone rang on the back pew, the Daily Press in Hampton, Va., reported. News was that the medical examiner was going to meet with McCain's parents at 1 p.m., and later the group learned they were "95 percent sure" she had been killed.

On her MySpace.com page, McCain had written about the certainty of her faith. "I don't have to argue religion, philosophy or historical evidence," she wrote, according to the Daily Press, "because I KNOW him."

In a birthday card to a friend recently, McCain had mentioned how wonderful she thought heaven would be, the newspaper said.

"Easter Sunday was the last day I had with Lauren," Cordell Woods, an uncle who was at the church, told the Daily Press. "She was filled with a purpose. There was nothing negative in her life. And that's the way I want to remember her."

McCain's parents released a statement Tuesday afternoon, which said, "We grieve over our great loss, and yet find peace in the reality that God is worthy of our trust and we are sustained in our sorrow by that truth."

On Wednesday night, April 18, about 350 people gathered at the church to celebrate her life. Her mother expressed what she thought her daughter might want to say.

"Come on guys. This is so exciting! Let's praise Him! Let's praise Him!" Sherry McCain said, according to The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Hampton.

David Bounds, pastor of Restoration Church Phoebus Baptist, said the congregation takes comfort in knowing McCain is now where she wanted to be.

"She loved the Lord with all of her heart, and it showed," Bounds said. "She just didn't talk about the Lord; she lived Him."

McCain was also an active member of Campus Crusade for Christ and named Jesus Christ and her brother Joel as two of her heroes on her MySpace webpage. "Every conversation we had was about God," Delia D'Auria, the worship pastor's wife at Restoration Church- Phoebus Baptist in Hampton, Va., told USA Today. "There was no opportunity that we spoke that our hearts didn't connect with spiritual matters."

In fact, when considering colleges, the homeschooled McCain was leery of choosing Virginia Tech because she dreaded the secular worldviews she would encounter from professors, the newspaper reported.

"She was the one when you needed a friend, she was the friend. As a 20-year-old, she was one of the exceptions to the rule," Leonard Riley, a retired minister, told USA Today. "She was a young lady who loved the Lord Jesus with all of her heart."

FAITH CONNECTIONS

Meanwhile, other reports are surfacing that indicate some of the other students who were killed had faith connections.

Mary Read, a native of South Korea and a freshman at Virginia Tech, had become active in Bible study and Campus Crusade for Christ in college.

"She was caring, kind, compassionate and loving—everything you could ask for in a friend," Mary Draper, a high school classmate, told USA Today.

Austin Cloyd, a freshman majoring in international studies, was a member of First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., before moving to Blacksburg, where her father is an accounting professor at Virginia Tech, USA Today said.

A receptionist at Blacksburg Baptist Church confirmed to Baptist Press that Cloyd is the granddaughter of one of their church members.

The Jewish community of Brooklyn, N.Y., mourned the death of a Holocaust survivor April 18 during the first in a series of funerals expected for the victims. Liviu Librescu, 76, was the professor who stood in the doorway of a classroom in Norris Hall to block the gunman from attacking his students. Librescu, who was sent to an internment camp near Focsani, Romania, when he was 10, was an Israeli citizen noted for his contributions to the aerospace industry.

After the killings, Barrett Duke of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the tragedy "should certainly be a reminder to the church that there are people in this country and throughout the world in great pain—great spiritual pain, great personal pain—and they need an answer."

"And that ultimate answer is Jesus Christ," Duke, vice president for public policy, said at an April 18 news conference among evangelicals held at the National Press Club in Washington.

Duke added that the church has "not done what we need to do to make sure that answer is everywhere at all times so that those suffering the kind of pain and the mental anguish that this young man [the gunman] was experiencing would know that there's somebody that he could talk to who could point him to a God who could help him before he would engage in such horrific acts."

The shootings, Duke said, are a call to the church to work together to proclaim the love and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Compiled from Baptist Press reports with additional reporting by Tom Strode.