Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church welcomed back its congregation to the first services held since a woman opened fire inside the Houston megachurch.
On Sunday morning, Osteen said the two services, just a week after the tragic shooting, marked a ‘time of healing and restoration’ for his church’s community.
‘This Sunday we’re gonna have special services- time of healing and restoration, time of praise and thanksgiving, just thanking God for his angels for watching after us,’ Osteen said in a video posted to X ahead of the services.
On February 11, Genesse Moreno, 36, went to the megachurch, dressed in a trench coat, armed with two rifles and opened fire shortly before 2pm.
Her seven-year-old son Samuel, who she brought with her to the church at the time of the shooting, was severely wounded and she was shot dead. A man was also wounded in the shooting.
Joel Osteen posted a video to social media on Sunday morning ahead of the Lakewood Church services that were held a week after the tragic mass shooting. He called the ‘special services’ a ‘time of healing and restoration’
The church’s large crowd is seen during services on Sunday- the first time back in the building since the frightening shooting that took place a week ago
Video from the church shooting on February 11 showed scared adults and children as they were being evacuated from the building by police
The boy wounded in the shooting has gone on to fight for his life in a hospital after he was shot in the brain. It is unclear who exactly shot him as two off-duty police officers shot and killed her.
He remains in the hospital with a grim prognosis as his paternal grandmother, Walli Carranza, who lives in Mexico, flew out to be by his bedside.
Through a family spokesperson, Carranza, who is a Rabbi, told DailyMail.com how she and her son have spent the last four years trying to get custody of Sam.
‘He wanted custody because he didn’t believe that she was capable of raising him,’ said longtime friend Connie Eicher described.
‘First off, she was mentally ill. They never knew when she would be good and when she wouldn’t be good.’
The shooter has been identified as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, who previously used the name Jeffrey and has a lengthy criminal record going back to 2005. She is seen in 2022
Moreno had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and Munchausen by proxy.
Eicher said Moreno used Sam as a ‘bargaining chip’ and would disappear anytime her ex-husband, Enrique Alberto Carranza, tried to see him.
The officers immediately intervened after Moreno fired the guns inside the megachurch that is regularly attended by 45,000 people every week, with services live-streamed to about 100 countries.
On the day of the shooting, Osteen wrote on X that his ‘community is devastated by today’s events and grateful for the swift actions of law enforcement.’
‘In the face of such darkness, we must hold onto our faith and remember that evil will not prevail,’ he added.
‘God will guide us through the darkest of times. Together, we will rise above this tragedy and stand firm in our commitment to love and support one another.’
A harrowing video showed the moment worshippers at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church ran for cover as shots rang out in the Texas congregation
Moreno was previously arrested for assault, weapons, marijuana possession and forgery charges
It remains unclear how she was able to legally purchase the AR-15 she used in the killing, or why she was allowed to retain custody of the boy.
Child Protective Services in Texas have yet to answer DailyMail.com’s questions on the case.
On Facebook, Carranza said that she blames the state of Texas for him being injured.
Houston police and FBI agents were seen in Conroe Sunday night reportedly raiding a house related to the suspect.
Moreno was previously arrested for assault, weapons, marijuana possession and forgery charges. She was seen in two mugshots, one from 2005 and one from 2009.
The boy’s grandmother went on to reveal in a statement that ‘despite more than 20 reports’ of medical abuse, neglect, medical neglect and reckless endangerment by the mother, Moreno was still able to purchase deadly weapons.
Carranza said: ‘Samuel had no protection of his God-given Right to Life,’ the grandmother posted.
‘Because the very same legislators who claim to be “pro-life” believe that unbridled gun rights matter and the right to life does not!’
Besides her lengthy criminal record, Moreno often used aliases, including a male persona: Jeffery Escalante. It’s a name she often gave cops, arrest records show.
‘My faith tradition demands of me compassion and I have it for my deceased daughter in law,’ Carranza stated.
‘She had schizophrenia and now we know, anti-social personality disorder. Her brain was broken.’
Carranza previously told DailyMail.com that Sam was a special needs child from birth when he was born at 23 weeks, weighed under a pound and spent the first seven months of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit.
‘He had a very low chance of survival, and he survived,’ the grandmother said.
But Carranza explained Sam did not receive care for the sequelae of preterm birth that left him with asthma and speech impediments.
Samuel Moreno Carranza, 7, is seen in the hospital where he remains in critical condition in the ICU at a children’s hospital in Houston, Texas, after he was shot in the brain while his mother opened fire inside the Lakewood Church
Carlos Gonzalez, a worship singer, hugs a fellow churchgoer after the shooting
FBI agents gathered around the Conroe neighborhood Sunday night as they raided a house related to the suspect
‘Because the dad was given the right of primary custody on temporary basis, the mom then disappeared and she hid and hid and hid him,’ the grandmother said.
During the time of the shooting, one witness said he heard around 30 gunshots as he ran out of the church with his daughters.
Christina Rodriguez, who was inside the church, told Houston television station KTRK that she ‘started screaming, `There´s a shooter, there´s a shooter,´’ and then she and others ran to the backside of a library inside the building, then stood in a stairway before they were told it was safe to leave.
Officials later announced a reunification center had been set up for people to find their loved ones, at a nearby fitness center.
Witness Paula Laverde said: ‘So there was one shot first and then there was a set of shots and then we started running and then there were multiple sets of shots, I can’t really count them, it was at least five times that they shot multiple times.’
Moreno was born in the Middle East and ‘ranted’ against Jews.
‘Although my former daughter-in-law raged against Israel and Jews in a pro Palestinian rant yesterday this has nothing to do with Judaism or Islam,’ her mother-in-law said.
It was later found that Moreno’s mother, who was her only support system, left town sometime before the shooting.
A family friend of the grandmother, Connie Eicher, said that she believes that Moreno may have felt hopeless, leading her to go to the church where her mother was a member.
‘She could have shot up the entire congregation if they had not stopped her,’ Eicher added.
Investigators also found anti-Semitic writings in Moreno’s car after the shoot-out. One of the guns she had had a sticker that read ‘Palestine’ on it.
‘I wasn’t surprised when I heard that there had been anti-semitic rants because they were trying to get the baby from her,’ Eicher said.
‘I think she was using him as a shield. I think she thought that as long as she had him she was protected.’