Exhausted AirAsia Victims’ Families Cry and Sing in Tiny Chapel

Exhausted AirAsia Victims’ Families Cry and Sing in Tiny Chapel
Members of Mawar Sharon church attend a prayer service for the relatives of lost loved ones aboard the AirAsia Flight 8501, in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015. About 40 members of the church were aboard the plane which crashed into the Java Sea a week ago. AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati
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SURABAYA, Indonesia—Around 100 family members of AirAsia Flight 8501 crash victims sought strength Sunday, one week after the disaster, while bad weather again prevented searchers from reaching a large object on the ocean floor that is believed to be the fuselage.

Emotionally exhausted relatives sang and cried at a tiny chapel in Surabaya, the city where the plane departed from last Sunday with 162 crew members and passengers. The Rev. Philip Mantofa, who heads the congregation at the city’s Mawar Sharon Church — where more than a quarter of the crash victims were members — urged those gathered to find comfort in their faith while embracing the reality that no one survived the disaster.

“If God has called your child, allow me to say this: Your child is not to be pitied,” Mantofa told one Indonesian man seated in the front row. “Your child is already in God’s arms. One day, your family will be reunited in heaven.”

"One day, your family will be reunited in heaven."
Rev. Philip Mantofa
Eileen Ng
Eileen Ng
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