Five years after tragedy, Sutherland Springs church remembers as it seeks normalcy

On Saturday, First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs held a special service to ring bells and honor the victims and survivors of one of this country’s worst mass shootings. On Sunday, the focus was trying to continue seeking normalcy, helping congregants with their faith as the church searches for a new senior pastor. Such was this weekend in the small town east of San Antonio, as it observed the fifth anniversary since a gunman entered the small church and killed 26 people and injured more than 20 on Nov. 5, 2017. Some of those who survived moved away and left the church, but most remained, said Ted Montgomery, a member of the church for 34 years who helped hire Pastor Frank Pomeroy. Pomeroy led the church through the tragedy.

“I think many of us have moved on, but it’s an ongoing thing,” Montgomery, 73, said. “We’ve been through a lot.” “As time has gone on, some of them have been able to put it in the past,” said another member, Janie Morales. “Like they said, ‘Evil never won.’ God is there for us, and we just have to weather the storms.” Morales said she and her husband, Joe, attended services sporadically before the shooting, but since then, “We have started coming more as a family.” Few of the survivors have chosen to speak publicly about the matter, limiting their comments to testimony at civil trials that resulted from the tragedy, in which a judge found the Air Force liable for not reporting the shooter’s violence to a national database that might have prevented him from legally buying guns used in the massacre. Marines veteran Juan “Gunny” Macias, for example, who was shot several times in the church shooting, continues attending services nearly every Sunday. Though he graciously accepted a reporter’s request to be photographed, he declined to be interviewed. “I’m not going talk about that,” he said firmly. During a civil trial in a lawsuit filed against the government by survivors, the veteran fought back tears as he retold the horror of that day, including how he ignored his own wounds to help others and coaxed a panicked worshiper, a nurse by training, to calm down and help.