By Tina Bailey, CBF field personnel
Note: The following blog was written in June 2025 following a shooting at the Dreierschützengasse secondary school in Graz, Austria.
I’m really not sure what the words are to express this well, but I’m going to try.
This week has been challenging, to say the least. It’s been full of ups and downs. On the very same day, I found out I’m cancer-free and got my stitches out…. Graz was faced with a huge tragedy.
The worst school shooting in Austria’s history, especially since the war, the Second World War.
It has rocked the city, the nation and both Austrian and international communities. I’ve seen a lot of coming together by being intentional in caring for each other. I have hugged and spoken with so many people I don’t know. I asked how people were doing and listened as they spoke, sometimes in German that was beyond my comprehension, but it didn’t matter because I was to be able to listen.
I’ve cried with people. I’ve watched the outpouring across ethnic and religious lines of compassion. I’ve seen tremendous love and compassion and a fierce determination to not let this act of hate impact the city. As one young woman said at an event, what the shooter meant for hate, we will turn into love and we will come together. And this is what we’ve seen.
As the week has passed, we’ve seen many other things happening. Some I won’t share because they’re not my story to tell. Others I can share. I have met with mothers who left the U.S. because of school shootings only to find that that happened here. They were shaken.
I’ve talked with mothers whose children had faced tremendous heartache in other countries and are scared to go to school. Spoke to journalists and police officers about good care and shopkeepers and check-out clerks at grocery stores. I saw the president of Austria and the mayor of Graz speak with so much care compassion and determination, bringing unity.
I watched as a Protestant minister, a catholic priest and a young Muslim imam spoke of love connection, and unity as they shared a podium together. I watched as a crowd cried with a young boy as he spoke about his sister was one of the ones who died. I spoke to a young man who said he’ll never forget the shots he heard although he was in a different classroom but at the same school. I’ve spoken to parents whose children are traumatized because they had friends at that school.
The story is more familiar in many places in the world, but here in Austria, it is unfamiliar. And so I continue to care, and I will for a long time.
As the impact of trauma settles into hearts and minds, many people in this country are dealing with vicarious trauma. Sometimes just taking the time to say your pain is valid… for people to know that, yes, you do not have to feel ashamed or guilty because you feel the impact.
You, too, are impacted because we are connected souls.
And that’s what we do. We try to show up and be present.
Today, on the Sunday following the shooting last Tuesday, I’m at church at the International Baptist and Gemeinde, the church in Graz, worshipping with Iranian, Afghan, Turkish, Kurdish, Mexican, American, German and Austrian. There may be a few others that I’m not accurately calling attention to. But we prayed for the world.
We prayed and people cried as they thought about their families in Iran, Mexico, as well as friends and connections in Syria, Palestine, Israel and the U.S. My Iranian friends prayed for my safety as I began to prepare for my trip where I’ll be in the States coming up.
We all lit candles of prayers as we looked at a globe, reflecting on being the salt and light. If we are light, darkness cannot overcome it. These are beautiful words, and it’s a challenge for us to stand and live by. So we take it day by day. We stand together, and we do not let hate, racism, classism, privilege or despair come between us. We lean on God. We lean on the unconditional love of Jesus.
I am inspired every day by the place I live and the people here and many people that I’ve grown to love.