At Least 41 Members of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 Were Christians

It has been reported that at least 41 members of the tragic AirAsia QZ8501 flight from Surabaya to Singapore were Christians.  They were all members of he Mawar Sharon Church of Surabaya, part of one of the largest megachurches in the region, with 30,000 members. 

The Church members were apparently going to Singapore for a holiday. A pastor at the church, Philip Mantofa, said that he was shocked to learn of the big loss to his parish. He urged relatives of the victims not to allow the tragedy to shake their faith.

"Some things do not make sense to us but God is bigger than all this," Mantofa said, according to the Daily Mail.

Moreover, at least another five people on board the AirAsia flight belonged to The Bethany Church, another prominent church in Surabaya.  Further, a young family of Korean Christian missionaries was also on board the flight, reports added on Tuesday. The husband, Park Seong-beom, 37, his wife, Lee Kyung-hwa, and their 11-month-old daughter, Park Yuna, were reportedly traveling to Singapore to renew their visas so they can continue doing their missionary work in Indonesia. 

Of the 162 passengers and crew on board the AirAsia flight, many were believed to be still in the fuselage of the plane, which still had not been found. Searchers recovered a window panel and were continuing to search the relatively shallow waters with specialist equipment for the fuselage and the black box flight recorders.

They are focused on an area of 1,575 square nautical miles of the northern Java Sea. Authorities said conditions were difficult, with strong winds and heavy seas preventing divers from conducting an underwater search.

"Waves were between three and four metres today, making it difficult to load bodies onto ships and between ships," the chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, told reporters in Jakarta.

"We are sending tugboats which should make the (body) transfers easier."

He said two of the 30 bodies found were still strapped to their plane seats.

 

 

 

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