BLACKSBURG, Va. (BP/FBW)—Three days after the shootings at Virginia Tech, a leader at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry on campus issued a call for continued prayer for those affected by the tragedy.

"The mood is very solemn on campus. It's quieter," Mark Appleton, associate BCM director at Virginia Tech and a Mission Service Corps missionary with the North American Mission Board, told Baptist Press April 19. "So many people have left just to get away from here, so it's just a quieter atmosphere besides all the media folks."

Appleton asked that Southern Baptists across the country keep up their prayer efforts even as the intense concern for the victims starts to subside.

"People hear that all the time in a situation like this, but it's a real and absolute need," he said. "This is going to be a long-term thing. People are getting over the initial shock, but there's some stuff that's going to be dealt with for a long time here.

"Students are going to have to start going back to class, and that's going to feel a lot different," Appleton added. "The whole atmosphere in this town feels different. That's hard to describe to people. That's going to take some healing, and the opportunity for ministry is going to be great."

April 17 David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, announced the congregation would have a special time of prayer for the families of the victims and those connected to the tragedy.

"Yesterday was a tragic day in the history of America," Uth said in an April 16 press release. "Once again we are faced with trying to understand what is happening in a country that has been more blessed than any other nation in the world.

"At Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, in the space of a few hours, lives were taken away from families, friends, and colleagues. Even those of us who do not know them personally indeed feel a sense of loss as though they were our own," Uth said.

"We are asking all of our family at First Baptist Orlando to take time to pray for the families of all of those who lost their lives at Virginia Tech as well as the faculty and local officials," Uth continued. "May God's love shine through as we all try to understand His sovereign purpose."

Following a joint prayer service with Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity on the night of the shootings, the BCM carried on with its planned functions Tuesday and Wednesday night, Appleton said.

"On Tuesday, people started heading home quite a bit. We had our worship gathering Tuesday night with maybe 60 or 80 students," he told BP. "Last night we had our weekly small groups. We didn't think we'd have many people at all for that because even more people had left, but we ended up with 40 or 50 last night.

"That was a neat time because they are groups that have been together all year long," Appleton said. "Those who were still in town came together and talked some Scripture but then started processing things together again. Then they started to laugh a little bit and tried to be normal, which is a good thing."

Jim Burton, senior director of the partnership mobilization division at the North American Mission Board, told Baptist Press April 19 he had no updates on disaster relief activity from the two Virginia state conventions. Things are mostly slowing down, he said.

Brandon Pickett, media missionary for the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, reported that four of the state convention's pastors and one church planter in the Blacksburg area have offered to counsel anyone who needs to talk about the shootings.

"The YMCA has donated some rooms to us for the next couple of months for counseling and Bible studies and things like that," Pickett said. "This is a real neat thing where pastors in the area are getting together and saying, 'Hey, you know, sometimes people come in for a short time to help, but we're here to stay to minister.'