West Valley Christian School to Hold Prayer Vigil for Chinese Victims in Asiana Plane Crash

Jul 10, 2013 03:01 AM EDT

The San Fernando Valley school that had been the destination of the two Chinese schoolgirls killed in the crash of Asiana flight 214 in San Francisco will hold a prayer vigil for them Thursday.

Wang Linjia, 16, and Ye Mengyuan, 17, were among a group of 34 students and teachers from Jiangshan Middle School looking forward to attending a three-week summer camp at the West Valley Christian School. They were going to stay with host families, study English, sight-see, visit universities and explore career opportunities.

The school administrator Derek Swales said the camp session has been canceled and the remaining students and chaperones are expected to return to China.

A prayer vigil for the victims is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the church on campus.

"These are amazing, amazing gifted, talented, great prospects with a lot of talent that are coming over here," Swales told ABCNews.com. "It's just devastating to think that superstar kid in the classroom with all that potential was just taken."

The prayer vigil will include a song, Amazing Grace, sung in Mandarin. There will be empty student classroom chairs on the platform symbolically memorializing the missing guests, posting three wreaths on the stage (2 white wreaths representing the two girls who died and one red wreath representing the nation of China). The prayer vigil service will also have a translator.

A video of the ceremony will be presented to the girls' families overseas. "From our perspective, whether they're Christian or not, we'd love to share with them God's love and grace," Pastor Rob Denton said.

Guests who attend the prayer vigil will have an opportunity to write notes on banners that will be sent to the homes of the two girls and red, white and blue notes will be mailed to the homes of the other families.

On Sunday, July 21, church services will include the completion of care packages that will be sent to the 35 families in China. Memorial plaques in honor of Ye Mengyuan and Wanh Linjia will be sent to the girl's school in China.

Meanwhile, family members of the two Chinese victims of the Asiana crash arrived in San Francisco from Jiangshan, Zhejiang province on Monday night, while many of the injured in the crash were still undergoing treatment.

Wang Chuan, a press officer of the Chinese Consulate, said three students remain in critical condition and two others are being treated for injuries at the hospital.

Chinese Consul General in San Francisco Yuan Nansheng visited five Chinese survivors in San Francisco General Hospital on Monday morning, where they were being treated for injuries.

"One student was undergoing surgery when I went there and I spoke with the doctor," Yuan said. "I was told that the student was still in very serious condition. I will keep a very close eye on that student's progress," adding that another student was recovering and had been transferred from ICU to an ordinary patient room.

The National Transportation Safety Board and its Korean counterparts are focusing their investigation into the crash on the airliner's pilots, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman said in a news conference on Monday.