COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (BP) — After finishing up Sunday morning services as pastor at Freedom Fellowship Church on June 29, Jeremy Scott and his wife, Jennifer, left town for a well-deserved trip to a cabin near the Canadian border to celebrate their 28^th anniversary. On their way, they noticed several police cars headed back toward town.

Most of the remaining two and a half hour drive provided no cell service. They learned, after connecting to the cabin’s Wi-Fi, that someone had started a fire in a popular hiking area of Coeur d’Alene, then shot at responding firefighters, killing two. Residents were in lockdown as the police hunted the shooter.

The event took place a couple of miles from the church, and only a mile from the Scotts’ home. They turned around and headed back that night.

Coeur d’Alene is a resort town where nothing bad happens, Jeremy Scott told BP. Such an event shocked the area.

“The safety and innocence we felt here is kind of gone now,” he said. “If something like this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”

In addition to the two fatalities, a third firefighter is recovering from gunshot wounds. The Kootenai County sheriff told reporters the shooter set the fire to lure firefighters in, then climbed a tree with a shotgun. Law enforcement exchanged gunfire with him before finding the 20-year-old dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound later in the evening.  The fire was eventually brought under control.

The Scotts have two sons. One lives out of the house and was at work while the younger one, 17 years old, was at home.

Jeremy Scott is part of a group of pastors who meet monthly. Their role will be crucial, he said, in helping the community recover in the coming weeks.

Seen as a sanctuary

“I’m not sure people have really begun to express how they’re struggling,” said Scott, whose Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary included a concentration in biblical counseling. “I’ve reached out to other pastor friends to let them know I’m praying for them. I know many of us will be speaking on the tragedy this Sunday from the pulpit and many will be counseling their people, as I’m going to be. But, we have yet to see the long-term impact.”

Scott was 4 years old when his family moved to the area in 1979 from California. He is in his eighth year as pastor of Freedom Fellowship.

“There is a strong commitment to the family here,” he said. “I’m encouraged by the pastors I meet with each month. That’s across denominations, but we come together for fellowship and to pray for each other. There’s just something unique about it, just like northern Idaho and how people around here see it as a sanctuary.”

Availability will be an important role for pastors and churches as the community continues to heal, he added. Freedom Fellowship has opened its doors for those wanting counseling.

“We have to be equipped and ready, as 1 Peter 3:15 tells us, to give a defense for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ,” Scott said. “I can’t tell you why (the shooter) did what he did. But I can tell you that this is one more story of the greater story, which is the fall of man and the wages of eternal death for sin.

“But we can also say there is peace and hope in Christ. He’s in control. He’s the one who gives real hope that cannot be taken away, even in the face of suffering. We are called, as the Church, to bring the reminder that even in death, hope cannot be taken away.” 

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)