Sarasota, Fla. — By 9 a.m., the Bay Shore Mennonite Church was so full that extra seats were being set up against the back wall.

The local Mennonite population, depending on the season, runs to 3,000 people. Could they all be here?

What might have been just another early spring Sunday had already been transformed by the shared Mennonite tragedy in the Bluffton University bus wreck Friday in Atlanta. When the baseball team from Eastern Mennonite University — the one scheduled to play Bluffton over the weekend — filed in and took over the balcony, the climate changed again.

"Even though the Bluffton ball team wasn't here nor their close families, part of this was for the EMU baseball team," said Rocky Miller, lead pastor at Bay Shore. "We don't know how they're going to react. 'We're down here in Florida to play ball and have a great time. But we should be grieving as well.'

"A service like this helps them make that transition."

And so for nearly 90 minutes, a grief emanating from Atlanta was shouldered 500 miles away. In song, scripture and sermon, with a congregation that actually numbered around 700, stretching from toddlers to older women with traditional prayer covers atop their heads, the Mennonites sought comfort amid the senseless.

Loren Swartzendruber, president of EMU, delivered the sermon, placing the congregation on the Bluffton bus.

"How could it be, with some of them sleeping, perhaps even dreaming of that bottom-of-the-last-inning home run they will hit to beat EMU or that no-hitter they will toss, how could it be that in a brief few seconds, that sleep turns to flight and quiet turns to chaos?" Swartzendruber asked.

"Or perhaps even more confounding, why are some left relatively unscathed and others never had a clear sense of what was happening? Some see the paramedics and some others are transported across the divide between this world and the next. Why one and not the other? Is it chance? Its just the luck of the draw?"

Bluffton and EMU had not played baseball against each other the past several years. Neither team had friends on the other side, although Bluffton had originally planned to join EMU for this service. But that was three days ago. Baseball, college, spring vacation all ceased, while life took over.

"Being from a Christian school, that's something that we need to remember," EMU team captain Jameson Jarvis said. "It's something that's very easy to lose focus on."

Dave King, EMU's first-year athletic director, delivered a prayer, asking the congregation to reach out as hands were placed on neighboring shoulders. That an athletic director would lead the group was not insignificant, as this story began with baseball and will live on with the game that way.

"If we don't use our experiences with athletics to make ourselves better people 10 years from now, then it's not worth doing," King said afterward. "This is only one of those additional pieces you can learn from. Hopefully each kid is going to take something. It'll probably be different for every one."

The service ended with the typical announcements. Sunday school would follow the service. The junior high was having a Hoedown Dinner on Friday. But somewhere, some words from Swartzendruber still echoed: "Life is difficult and it is so because we are human. And thank God that it is so."

EMU's baseball team hardly lingered before reboarding a bus — another bus full of baseball players — and was whisked away to dress for another practice. The school had been able to schedule a double-header today with Hiram College, which Bluffton had originally been set to play. Three days after hitting town, the EMU Royals were finally going to play a game.

Stepping outside Bay Shore, coach Mark Mace grinned as he said, "You get us on the diamond, between those lines, everything is good."