Reverend Myles Munroe, 60, an internationally known pastor, preacher, and author, and eight others were killed in a plane crash on Sunday afternoon in the Bahamas.
Munroe and several members of Bahamas Faith Ministries (BFM), which was founded by Munroe, were on their way to a Global Leadership Forum in the Bahamas that was to take place November 10 to 13.
However, the small plane crashed into a shipping container crane while landing. Officials say that the rain and extreme weather conditions may have caused landing complications. Among those who were on the plane included Munroe's wife, Ruth, and Dr. Richard Pinder, the assistant pastor in BFM.
Despite the loss, the forum will continue, according to a statement on Munroe's Facebook page. "We would like to inform you that the Global Leadership Forum will continue. This is what Dr. Munroe would have wanted. Please keep his family and the ministry in prayers," it read.
"The whole country is devastated over what happened," said Dr. Ranford Patterson, the president of the Bahamas Christian Council (BCC), at a service at Bahamas Faith Ministries. "Dr. Munroe has really impacted the Bahamas and I guess the entire world in such a way that I don't know who could fill his shoes. It is a loss for the country. I believe it is a loss for the nations of the world."
William M. Wilson, the president of Oral Roberts University, of which Munroe was a student and faculty, said of Munroe, "Whether in a leadership gathering with those in highest authority or in Bahamas as a caring shepherd in a community of believers, Myles was always the same - upbeat, positive, loving, full of faith and searching for any way possible to make Jesus known in our generation."
In the midst of mourning, many encouraged the public to continue to trust in God.
"At times like these, I don't try to figure things out, I just know that all things ultimately figure into a larger and higher purpose that we may never fully understand in this present limited reality," Bishop Carlton Pearson, a friend of Munroe for 40 years, said on his Facebook.
Patterson said that though the loss of Munroe, his wife, and Pinder all at once "will be really difficult in the days ahead," he added that "we have the assurance that God will take care of us and that's what all of us will hold on to."
"I just believe that God knows exactly what he is doing. And we don't understand why, but I just know that God is in control. Just remember that God is in control."
