2008 Woodie Awards
Book benefits Virginia Tech students
Alex Koldeway
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: News
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Matt Rogers, pastor of the New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech, has been trying to help students cope with the massacre by looking for answers. His new book, "When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't," tries to answer some of the questions students have asked him.
"The outside community was asking intellectual questions," he said. "Most of the people here were asking more emotional questions."
Rogers said he wrote the book because he wasn't satisfied with other books that dealt with tragedy. He said he wrote the book as a journey about how to experience a loving God instead of a step-by-step way to deal with grief.
He gave an example of a young man who felt guilty because he was unable to stop the shooter. He said the young man thought he should have known the shooting was going to happen if he had listened to God that morning.
Rogers said the massacre brought students together, and the events of that day are always in the back of their minds. The one year anniversary of the shooting will bring those events back to the forefront.
Rogers said the Virginia Tech campus is unlike other campuses he has been to.
"The campus is such a tight knit community, and it only got tighter after what happened," he said. "It didn't feel like a national event, it felt like a family tragedy."
UW-Whitewater freshman Aaron Schmidt said he doesn't really think about the Virginia Tech massacre anymore. He said he wasn't concerned about a similar shooting happening at UW-Whitewater.
"I didn't think it would because it's such a small school," he said. " It doesn't really cross my mind anymore."
Senior Tom Corcoran had a similar attitude. He said he hasn't thought about the massacre for a while, and he was never worried about his safety on campus.
"I wasn't really worried about it at all," he said. "I try not to live in that kind of fear."
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