Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

$450,000 has been donated in one week!  Sounds like it could be a record amount, certainly for many worthy ministries, who would be rejoicing.

Sadly, this money was donated to honor the lives of four slain police officers in Tacoma, Washington, who just 2 weeks ago lost their lives after being shot deliberately by one lone gunman, as they sat working together in a local coffee shop.

As horrific and devastating as this crime was, the city, and even the nation, has rallied together to support the families and specifically the nine young children left by the four officers.  As I understand it, these funds are going into a college fund for the children.

$450,000 didn’t come from just family and friends.  Many of these gifts came from complete strangers whose hearts have been moved and are showing their appreciation for law enforcement officers everywhere.  We can all understand the cause, which in this case goes far beyond law enforcement, to grieving families, children without their fathers and their mother, widows and widowers left to raise families on their own and to the senseless crime that we may never understand.

The show of support here has been amazing!  Impromptu memorials have sprung up around the area, the largest being at the Lakewood Police Station where the officers were employed.  The largest procession in WA State history, 2,000 police and other emergency vehicles, took four hours to get the 10 miles to the service.  The official memorial service was held last Tuesday in the Tacoma Dome, where an estimated 20,000 people were in attendance from around the nation and Canada.  Another several hundred were viewing the service from four satellite facilities and thousands more stood along the procession route to pay their respects.

$450,000!  20,000+ people!  2,000 police vehicles!  Giving and coming together in support of a cause, for people who gave their lives in the line of duty, for the desperately needed law enforcement in every city, from which we all benefit.  Lives are being touched, changed forever and notably transformed as a result of this tragedy and as a result of this phenomenal show of support.

I only wish it could have been under different circumstances.