On February 10, 2026, we woke up to the terrible news of a shooting at a small town called Tumbler Ridge. In 2021 (the last time a census was taken), Tumbler Ridge registered a tight community of only 2,400 people, but on February 10th, an 18 year old member of that community shot and killed 8 people and then himself, making that tragedy the worst in BC history. Most of those victims were only 12 years of age. The incident has reverberated across the globe and sent a shiver through our corporate consciences as the agonizing details unfolded over the next few days. The shooter was a young man born into a terribly broken home. His mother took him from his father when he was very young and lived in multiple places in a short period of time since he was 2. A Supreme Court decision in 2015 ruled that for 5 years, his mother had lived a nomadic life between Newfoundland and Labrador, Grande Cache (Alberta) and Powell River (B.C.) and ordered her back to Tumbler Ridge where his father could gain access to him. She returned to Tumbler Ridge, but that access was never given by his mother. By the time he was 12 years old, he began to engage in medical procedures to change his gender, identified himself as a female, and started on a pathway of emotional instability and mental health problems that brought the police repeatedly to the door. He dropped out of school at 14, and before he was 16, he had a gun license. Police records show that he had weapons removed from his home for improper use, but were inexplicably returned upon petition. The young man’s brief life of pain ended on February 10th when he killed his mother and 11 year old step brother at home, and headed off to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School nearby where he killed 5 children and a teacher assistant before turning the gun on himself.
As I reflect on the terrible tragedy of Tumbler Ridge, I am reminded of the toll of 7 children (and yes, the shooter was barely an adult himself) and two adults. It is difficult to bury anyone, but it is far more difficult to place a child in the grave. I think about the time when Jesus stopped His disciples as they tried to control the crowd bringing children to Him. “Let the children come to Me,” He instructed them, “Don’t forbid them!” Then Jesus declared something quite astounding. He said, “For to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:13-14) Theologians have clamored over what Jesus really meant. Part of the difficulty is how the Greek translates over into the English. The word “belongs” is translated from the word that means “exists,” which makes the declaration even more puzzling. Is the Kingdom of Heaven like a room-full of children? Is it made of noisy, curious young minds seeking spiritual nourishment? I think what Jesus meant in that room filled with people wanting to hear Him is that children deserve as much access as anyone else does. No one is an inconvenience. No one deserves the Kingdom more than others. The problem with the young shooter of Tumbler Ridge was that he lived a childhood where he was denied the life-giving joy of a stable home, where he was convinced that his gender and his identity were incompatible, where he was given powerful hormone blockers that destabilized his mental life, and where he was granted access to guns but not his father, choices but not his peace, and an address but hardly a home. As the details begin to unfold in the Tumbler Ridge tragedy, and as “pro-tans” advocates try to defray the implications of this event, one thing stands clear for the believer in Christ: lost people desperately need Christ, and there are many people and many philosophies that stand in the way, shooing them away from the Door of Life. May we be champions of Christ for the souls of the lost. May we say with Christ, “Let them come to Him. Don’t forbid them. For to such exists the Kingdom of Heaven.”
