8th Time in 2 Years: Billy Graham Chaplains Deploy to Europe after Terror

Crisis-trained chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team are in London. They're assessing how to provide emotional and spiritual care to those affected by the attacks.

CBN News spoke with the team's leader on the day after the attacks, which happened to be Pentecost Sunday.

"My encouragement would be that people call on the Holy Spirit for direction how to pray, that they would ask for those that have been affected by the tragedy, those that have lost loved ones, those that are supporting, those that are injured, and all the medical teams that I'm sure are working so hard and faithfully to support those that are injured and critically injured and for those in the investigation team as well," said Nigel Fawcett-Jones, a chaplain with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team. 

Chaplains from Canada and the United States are on standby to help those in need. 

On Facebook, Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, issued a call to pray.

"Stabbings, shootings, and death by vehicle — tragic and unnecessary loss of life," he wrote. "Be in prayer for the victims and the family members of those killed. Also pray for emergency responders and the law-enforcement involved."

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reports it's the eighth time in recent years that its Rapid Response Team chaplains have been deployed to Europe for terror-related reasons.

Prior to the recent attacks, the Rapid Response Team sent chaplains to Paris in 2015; Brussels, Belgium; Nice, France; Munich and Berlin, Germany last year; and London and Manchester, England this year.

In the wake of the Ariana Grande concert bombing in Manchester, the chaplains encouraged locals to reach out to God.

The ministry reports, one 22-year-old named Adam told a chaplain, "I used to have faith as a child. But I lost it. Too many bad things happened to me. I remember 9/11: I was only seven at the time. I started asking: how could a God who is in control allow this?"

The chaplain answered, "What about Jesus? What if God came and was not in control any more – if he suffered with us? If he went through an agony which was just as terrible as that of the kids in the bomb attack, who knew they were dying and that there was nothing they could do about it? Wouldn't He be a God worth believing in?"

He asked Adam if he would be willing to reach out to God and ask Him to reveal Himself to him. 

The young man sat silently, contemplating what the chaplain had said.

Then, despite the onlookers around him, he prayed aloud:

"God, if you are real, reveal yourself to me. Jesus, if you are real, reveal yourself to me."