It is now just over a month since Devin Kelley walked into First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and shot dead around half the congregation.
Among the 26 killed was Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old adopted daughter of the pastor Frank Pomeroy and his wife, Sherri. With her both her parents away on separate trips, Annabelle attended church as she usually did on Sunday November 5.
When the Pomeroys heard about the shooting they began their eight-hour plus journeys back to Texas to find their church bullet riddled and blood spattered and their daughter dead.
But Frank said despite being devastated, it has not shaken his faith.
'If I give up on the mission now, that means those 26 died in vain,' he said speaking to CNN. 'The whole 15 years I've been a pastor, [God's] been preparing me. This is my Super Bowl, if you will. God said, "OK, let's see where you're at."'
He admits to having doubts and wondering what he could have done if he was there.
'If you sit and you park in those kind of thoughts — of the ifs and the what-ifs — I think that we're staying in the valley of the shadow of death,' he said referring to Psalm 23. 'You've got to just get through there and keep on moving.'
Sherri Pomeroy said others had lost much more. One church member John Holcombe, the man who called Pastor Frank to tell him the news, lost his pregnant wife, his parents, three children, a brother and a niece.
'Yes, it hurts to lose a child. But they've lost also and they're still standing. How can I not stand with them?' she said. 'We have our moments and we cry. But if you dwell on that instead of dwelling on the positive, that's what tears you apart.'
