Jill Schramm/MDN Church leaders wave to people in the windows at Trinity Hospital Tuesday before offering silent prayers.

Silent prayers for the hurting in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic went up around Trinity Hospital and in homes across Minot Tuesday evening.

Led by ELCA Lutheran leaders, the interfaith gathering brought ministers and church leaders together for 10-15 minutes of silent prayer holding lit candles around hospitals in Minot, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo, Williston and Dickinson and other communities. A few others joined them, and church members also were invited to pray in their homes.

Rev. Erin Gullickson, who joined those around Trinity, said the gathering was to show support and be present.

“It lifts hopes and reminds us that even when we’re desperate, this is just one thing we can always do is pray and, historically, carrying a candle symbolizes the light of Christ and the hope that’s given us in that as well,” she said.

At least a dozen churches were involved in the Minot event, representing both Episcopalian and Lutheran congregations from Minot and area communities, said Gullickson, who serves Concordia Lutheran in Benedict and Our Savior Lutheran in Max and is chaplain for the North Dakota Highway Patrol.

Church leaders planned to lift prayers filled with thankfulness, hope, resilience and peace to all who care for, all who wrestle with and all who are remembering loved ones who’ve died with the coronavirus. Although brief, the visual of the gathering was meant to be a reminder that unending prayers are continually surrounding the hospitals, both patients and healthcare workers.

“We’ve been wrestling with this as a world for so long and just having North Dakota be on the map for something so tragic stirred emotion in a lot of us,” Gullickson said, adding those emotions were heightened with the news that a church bishop lost his mother to COVID Tuesday.

“We have pastors who are sick with it. We are burying beloved ones that are dying with it. We have family and friends who are devoting their time and life to the care of others, and it’s important to remember that we’re still one regardless. We’re united and we can get through this,” Gullickson said.