OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY) -- Pastor Lawrence Levy and Shauna Sias planned a street revival event at the North City Park to unify Opelousas after the city experienced multiple shootings, including three in a 24-hour period earlier this week. Just hours before the event, a message on social media changed everything.
Sias received pictures of kids with guns and the message to be at the park.
Sias made the decision to cancel the street revival event for the safety of those who planned to attend.
Sias posted the pictures to her social media to emphasize the point of the cancelled revival.
"My reasoning for posting that photo was not in attempt to implicate any of those children," Sias said. "My purpose was to simply get people aware that there are youths, we're losing some of them and if everyone is not on the same page then healing can't take place."
It was later discovered that the pictures were not sent by the people in the photo. The pictures were screenshots of old social media posts sent by someone else to bring fear to those attending the event.
In response to the people that sent the messages, Sias and Levy said negativity will not win.
"Consistency sometimes will come off abrasively," Sias said. "But it's only through consistency that change will happen. I will not ever apologize for loving my community and the people in it, even the ones that dont do loving things."
"Every party involved in the district and the parish has to play a part in order for these things to cease or even be minimized," Levy said.
