Calvary Temple's Lead Pastor is mourning with one of the church's families as they experience the tragic loss of a young girl.

On Wednesday, Pastor Bruce Martin and his wife heard in real-time the tragic events that led up to the fatal stabbing of three-year-old Jemimah after her father abducted her from her mother, Jasmine. The family is part of Calvary Temple's Deaf Fellowship. Barbara Easter, the fellowship's pastor, and Martin's wife knew the family well.

"I couldn't even believe what I was reading," Martin says. "(My wife Miriam) knew this little girl really, really well. She had held the girl many, many times, soothed her in the nursery, and comforted her."

They, like many people in Winnipeg, were grief-stricken with the loss. The couple's daughter joined Jemimah's vigil on Saturday night, signing "my heart breaks" with the group.

Martin's advice as Winnipeg feels uneasy is to allow yourself to cry with and for the mother. 

"Father, I just thank you for this opportunity to pray for people that are really feeling unease about this, that are feeling real anger and I just pray that you give us peace and that we have an internal perspective as believers and that doesn't take away the pain and that's not glib. Lord we thank you that you're bigger than this circumstance and you have a way of taking what's very bad and turning it around for good so help us, Lord, to be kind to reinvest the love that you've given us that never gives up in Jesus name, Amen." 

The pastor is asking for hearts to soften towards the father, saying this is "the broken, fallen world" where something went very wrong on Wednesday.

Martin says "we need to pray for the entire family" and is asking for prayers for God to help them as they reinvest their love and move forward.

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