Pastors comfort families
following coal mine accident

United Methodist News Service
When Buckhannon, W.Va., residents remember miners who died in the Sago Mine, they will probably not forget the voice of a 10-year-old boy.
Thomas Issaic “Ti” Anderson, son of Tom Anderson, read Psalm 91 during a Jan. 15 community memorial service at UM-related West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon.
Psalm 91 was his father’s favorite, Ti told the Rev. Mark Flynn, a United Methodist pastor, as they waited in the Sago Baptist Church for news about the miners.
Flynn, pastor of First UMC, Buck-hannon, went to Sago Baptist Church early Jan. 4 after getting a phone call from his wife. She had heard news reports of a mining accident that had left 13 men trapped underground.
Families were gathering at the Baptist church to await news about their loved ones.
Flynn, the Rev. Carol Duffield and the Rev. Clifford Schell were with the families when they received word first that the miners were alive and then that 12 men—including Ti’s father—had died.
“I am not sure I have the words for it yet,” Duffield said of that night. “It was overwhelming.” She is pastor of the Upshur Parish House, a United Methodist mission project in Buck-hannon.
“I can’t imagine this happening in a worse way,” Flynn said of the erroneous reports that the miners were alive. “I was angry at how the coal company had handled the families, but these folks showed a lot of grace and a lot of faith and really ministered to me.”
Schell, superintendent of the Wes-leyan District of the West Virginia Conference, said news that the miners were alive went through the crowd like “a brush fire.”
Then at 2:30 a.m. Jan. 3, after three hours of celebration, a coal company executive, accompanied by West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III and state troopers, came into the church. He told the families only one miner had survived.
“Immediately the joyful elation of the families turned to disbelief, indescribable grief, anger, accusations and an emotional spin down that hurt as they had never hurt before,” Schell said. “After anticipating their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers would walk into the church, they now had to suddenly deal with their deaths.”
The long hours of waiting with the families in the sanctuary were punctuated with many wonderful moments of sharing with the families, Duffield said.
“Steadfast hope and faith” were the overriding emotions within the sanctuary, she said.
“I think the overall atmosphere within the sanctuary, which no news media really reported, was this oneness,” she continued.
“You would see families moving around and trying to support each other. I think that unity was amazing to me. There were moments where anger prevailed, but that was not the norm; the norm was families sitting together or walking around and checking on other families.”
One of the 12 miners who died was a member of Corley UMC. A memorial service for Jackie L. Weaver, Philippi, W.Va., was conducted Jan. 8 in Philippi, led by the Rev. Destry Daniels, pastor, and the Rev. Arden Beck, retired.
Schell said many pastors and United Methodists helped minister to the families during those fateful hours. Several other United Methodist pastors stood watch with the miners’ families during the ordeal, including the Rev. Mitch Griffin, retired; the Rev. Dan Lowther, French-ton Charge; the Rev. Sue Lowther, Wilsontown Charge; and Tim Kelley, Burnsville Charge.
“Folks did what they could,” Schell said. “God knows this, and the rest was in God’s hands.”