Faith put to test as loved ones ask why

Natasha Bray was just 16, still a girl and with a child's attitude to life that her father is drawing upon to cope with a tragedy that has shattered a community.

It was raining the day Tasha embarked with her best friend, Portia McPhail, and other Elim Christian College pupils for an adventure she was not exactly keen on.

Her father, Andy Bray, said he had asked her how she felt to be going canyoning in such weather on Tuesday.

"She said her good friend Portia, who was in the group and died also, had said, `We've got this little saying - we'll jump in puddles'."

Mr Bray said the phrase meant the girls would make the best of anything.

"That's what my daughter and Portia are like. That's what all the parents are trying to do now. We're going to try and jump in puddles."

Sitting in front of a wall crammed with letters, cards and flowers, many to Tasha, he spoke strongly, without tears and in the present tense about the eldest of his three children, a leader blessed with a sense of excellence and with her lifetime ahead of her.

"I'm a dad who has lost his eldest daughter.

"This is a personal thing. I know this isn't a worldly way, but my daughter hadn't even kissed a guy," he said.

Elim is a Pentecostal school, where they feel their Christianity deeply.

Someone asked Mr Bray if his belief was being tested.

"It absolutely does test my faith in God. This is another chink in the armour and tests my belief.

"We are saying to God, 'Why has this happened? Where does this fit into your plan?' I don't have an answer to that, sorry, but I do have a place in my heart to go.

"I am just so glad that I know how to handle these things and know where I can take my grief.

"My belief is that Natasha is in a much better place and we're going to have to come to terms with not having her."

As pupils, staff, parents and others slowly came to terms with the tragedy throughout the day, principal Murray Burton spoke for them all.

"Why us, why this, isn't it needless?" he said. "My strong faith overcomes that anger: it hurts badly and for a long time to come, but my faith will sustain me. There is a bigger perspective in all this."

He didn't cast blame; it wasn't time. "We have natural questions as to what decision-making process they went through and that would be good to find out, but that is where I will leave it at this stage.

"The school is now ticking along, but that is just what it is doing, ticking along."

As school started some pupils had not heard the news.

One boy stood shocked and said what many teenagers would say: "That so sucks." Another knew some of the dead youngsters but couldn't work it out. "Faces and names, I can't get it yet."

At assembly children clung to each other as Mr Burton led the school in prayer. A little later, in private in the hall, they were told who had died. Those closest to them in age looked stunned.

Most pupils then went to class, some to write cards and letters.

To Tasha someone wrote: "I love you."

To Portia: "We miss your beautiful smile."

To teacher Tony McClean: "You are my hero."

And to pupil Floyd Fernandes, a note that could have been for them all: "See you in Heaven."

- © Fairfax NZ News