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They joined hands. They prayed. They held on to their children.
Hundreds of area residents gathered at a community prayer service last night to remember three slain Spotsylvania girls: Sofia Silva and Kristin and Kati Lisk.
It was a familiar scene.
A similar group came together less than a week ago for a community memorial service for Kristin and Kati.
Last night's gathering, titled "Standing for Our Children," encouraged area residents to unite against danger in the community. A crowd of about 300 gathered at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church in downtown Fredericksburg for the interfaith service.
"We're not going to let this sort of thing break down our community and let fear divide us," Fredericksburg Mayor Bill Greenup told the group.
Former Mayor Lawrence Davies, minister at Shiloh (Old Site) Baptist Church, said, "We should be ready to launch a defense for our children when they cannot defend themselves."
Some small children held onto their mothers' hands or leaned into their arms during the service.
"It wasn't just Ron and Patti Lisk who lost two children," said the Rev. Scott Bradshaw, minister at Grace Church of Fredericksburg. "We all lost those children."
When Kristin and Kati disappeared from their rural Spotsylvania County home on May 1, area residents were again gripped by the fear that shook them when 16-year-old Sofia Silva disappeared from her front step on Sept. 9. Silva's blanket-wrapped body was found about a month later in a King George County creek.
Five days after Kristin and Kati mysteriously vanished, their bodies were found in the South Anna River in Hanover County, near a bridge on State Route 738.
"We believe that Kristin and Kati Lisk did not die in vain," Bradshaw said.
Their deaths have united those people they left behind, he said.
"Our children are at risk, and we have to stand together as a community," he said.
Some speakers tried to help make sense of the slayings; others offered prayers to the area officials who work with children and those helping to solve the crime.
"We're fighting the spirit of the evil one," said Clinton Van Zandt, a retired FBI agent who lives in Spotsylvania.
Van Zandt had a warning for the killer or killers of the Lisk girls.
"Every morning when you get up and every night when you go to bed, the Lord knows what you did," he said.
At the end of the service, about 100 children packed the front of the church to hear prayers from three area ministers. At times, they held hands.
One of the ministers, the Rev. Christopher Buckner of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, offered words of comfort to the group.
"Not everyone needs to die in old age," he said. "Maybe God wants some children up there, too."
The congregation later joined in a rousing chorus of "Amazing Grace," which was followed by a benediction from the Rev. Cliff Reynolds, pastor at Goshen Baptist Church. Reynolds spent a lot of time with the Lisks over the past few weeks. Kristin and Kati were active in the church's youth group and were buried in the Goshen cemetery last Saturday.
Reynolds summed up the feelings of many area residents when he told a story from last week.
It was the night the girls were found. Reynolds said he went to the church to pray with some parishioners who had gathered there.
When everyone had left but one woman, she turned to Reynolds and said, "Do you want to pray?"
Reynolds looked at her and said, "I'm all prayed out."
