Pastors from different faiths gathered at the Batavia YWCA to spread the word of peace and love after several events around the country have spread hate and violence over the past few weeks.
About 100 people came together on the front lawn at YWCA after Pastor Roula Alkahouri, Pastor Jim Morasco, Todd Rapp, of The Salvation Army and Pastor Ivan Trujillo along with a host of others, gathered for a vigil of prayer and sharing stories.
“You have to speak up, you have to say something, you have to stand up for what is right,” says Pastor Alkahouri.
“It’s always under the surface, we live with this everyday, says Pastor Morasco. It needs to be addressed, unfortunately it takes a tragedy like what happened a couple weeks ago to bring people out to start thinking about it.”
Afterwords it was clear to most people that no one can stand on the sidelines any longer and communities must come together as one at such interfaith events to battle the hatred that has swept the nation.
“We are just going down the wrong path,” says Beverly Hoy of Batavia.
“We’re going backwards, we’re not going forward, we are going backwards,” says Nancy Palmer of LeRoy.
“We’ve already have been down this road and we shouldn’t be going down this road again. History is supposed to teach us about our mistakes and we are supposed to learn from our mistakes, but I guess hatred runs so deep for some that learning isn’t happening.”