Grieving with the Murphy Family and Brandon Valley Baptist Church
As the body of Christ and as a family, we grieve deeply and mourn with those who are mourning. And this week, the NAB family is mourning with a Brandon Valley Baptist Church family as tragedy struck on Monday. Dan and Joan Murphy were on vacation visiting some friends in Maryland when a neighbor came over seeking refuge from an abusive husband. The husband broke in and killed three people: Dan, a contractor there at the time, and one of the owners of the house. Dan and Joan are longtime members of Brandon Valley Baptist Church in South Dakota. Their son, Matt, is the administrative assistant at the church.
We ask that you take some time out of your day today to come before our heavenly Father, keeping these things in prayer—
- Pray for Joan and Matt as they face the next few days and weeks ahead. Matt flew to be with his mom and accompany her home from Maryland.
- Pray for Brandon Valley Baptist Church and Pastor Randy Battey. They held a special prayer meeting Tuesday to allow people to begin to deal with the shock and the grief of this tremendous loss.
- Pray also that the Lord might be glorified in this community and at the funeral service. Dan was very well known in Brandon. He taught in the school there for years. Pray that the hope and the promise that we have in Jesus is clearly presented and that people will be drawn to Him as their Savior.
Pastor Randy Battey expressed, “Right now we are just looking to get them home from Maryland Saturday night so that we can minister to them face-to-face. Pray for the community to have hearts open to the Gospel message. This has stunned the entire community and has already opened up doors of witness. God will be glorified in this!”
We covet your prayers and know that, as a family in Christ, this is an opportunity to love on our brother and sister.