Ambassador: Church shootings "difficult to comprehend"

Micronesia's ambassador to the United States had the same reaction to the shootings of three church leaders as did most of those in the Neosho area:

"That this horrible thing happened in a church is difficult to comprehend," said James Naich, Micronesia’s acting ambassador who came from Washington, D. C., to show his government's support for the estimated 600 Micronesians who live in southern Missouri.

Naich was among more than 1,000 who attended funeral ceremonies Saturday for the three men, who were shot to death during church services last Sunday at the First Congregational Church of Neosho.

The Northwest Arkansas Times opened its coverage of the funeral this way:

After the eulogies, after the a cappella hymns in their native tongue, and after hundreds filed out of the funeral home, came the wails.

And the screams. And the streams of tears for the three men who were gunned down in their church sanctuary last week.

Standing over the open caskets of Kernal S. Rehobson, Intenson Rehobson and Kuhpes "Jesse" Ikosia, the people who were closest to them heaved and wept, still in disbelief of the horror a gunman unleashed on their tight-knit Micronesian community.