“No one is safe in Scandinavia anymore.”
That’s how Sigridur Hilmarsdottir described her reaction to twin attacks in Norway that claimed 76 lives.
“We are shocked, more than words can say, over these senseless, cold-blooded murders in our friends’ country,” said Hilmarsdottir, a member of a tiny Church of Christ in Reykjavík, Iceland. “We are grieved and praying fervently for God’s mercy and comfort to the stricken.”
In Norway, Christians also are praying for victims of the July 22 bombing in the capital, Oslo, and a shooting rampage at an island youth camp.
“This is a really sad and painful incident for the whole nation,” said Colin Beharie, a church member in Sandnes, Norway.
Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of the killings, also is the subject of prayers among Norwegian Christians, said Borgar Andersen, a church member in Bergen, Norway.
“We pray for the terrorist as well,” he said, “that he will think over what he has done, repent and not sin anymore.”
A handful of Churches of Christ meet in Norway, Andersen said. He and his wife, Sana, worship in homes with three other Christians. A small group also meets in Skedsmokorset, near Oslo.
In neighboring Sweden, Christians mourn for the victims of the attacks, said Gabrielle Nilsson Opoku, who worships with a small Church of Christ in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm.
Many of the victims “probably never have heard the Gospel,” she said, “and their chance will never come again.
“Therefore, we are pleading for missionaries … to come to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries for the sake of the Gospel to be spread.”
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