On Thursday night, as Abigail Durden walked with the Black Lives Matter march in downtown Dallas, she found herself caught in a race war of sorts.

To her left, a black woman was shouting that white people shouldn't be part of the march. Another black woman to her right yelled back, saying the movement needs people of all races.

"They were literally arguing over me, and they were both looking at me while they were arguing," said Durden, who is white. "I felt really out of place" — until she felt the hands of Darius Burns on her shoulders.

Burns, a 20-year-old black man from Dallas, was among a group of about 20 interns from Project Transformation, a program of the United Methodist Church. Durden, a ministerial intern at Grace United Methodist Church in Dallas, decided at the last minute to go with them to march.

Durden, 20, was inspired to join the group after watching video in which Alton Sterling was shot to death by police in Baton Rouge. But the arguing women made her uncomfortable, until Burns demonstrated his solidarity. "I felt like I wasn't welcome there," Durden said, "but Darius made me feel welcomed."

The interns stayed with the march until shots rang out from a sniper who targeted white police officers, killing five of them. Burns ran into a parking garage to escape the shots, looking down from the fifth floor to witness the horror in the street below. The other interns ran in other directions.

Durden, who is an economics major at the University of Texas at Dallas, was to give her first sermon Sunday at Grace UMC. She set aside that sermon and started over, finding parallels with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here is what she shared with the congregation Sunday:

I was there on Thursday at the Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas. I'm still piecing together what happened, exactly. I've been slow to learn the details. That night, I didn't hear it was a sniper until hours after I heard gunshots and I saw the news on TV.

My heart is with the families of the victim. The officers killed were there to ensure my safety and the safety of the other protesters. I saw protesters shaking hands with the cops on our route. When a speaker at the rally shouted "F — the police," we didn't cheer. There was a rousing "no" from the crowd.

There were children and infants there with their families. After the gunshots and we started running, a group of us were held in this little grassy area behind a federal building, where I met Sterling, a 6-year-old boy. A police car raced down the street towards us and we put our hands up in the air. We still didn't know anything and we were afraid to make sudden movements. Sterling put his hands up too. That was hard.

I bent down and asked him about the two dinosaurs on his shirt. He called the brontosaurus a "long neck," but he didn't know what a T-rex was. I wondered what he would remember from that night.

Enough of us had phones with power to find each other — except for Darius. His phone had died and he had driven by himself. We didn't know then who was shooting at whom, and he had been with us and then had just disappeared when we had started to run.

But I'm here for the good news. The good news was that, stranded in that grassy dead-end, there were two Hispanic families there for justice for Jose Cruz. One father had a backpack filled with Fanta and guava nectar soda, and he passed them out to us to share. It was a blessing in the sticky night heat, already having run and reeking of fear. We didn't have anything to give him, but he knew better than we did that we were his neighbors.

As we were running from the gunshots, I was protected and led by people I had met just that night. We were sharing phones that still had charge so people could call their moms and dads. That was good news. When Darius finally found us at that grassy corner, that was good news. That was God.

We were finally led, hours after the shooting, by a homeland security officer to the entrance of the Hyatt Regency where we could call a cab. We were brought back to SMU by a bus from First UMC Dallas. They knew better than we did that we were their neighbors.

My keys had been left in downtown Dallas in a car at the crime scene. I was stranded at SMU. But the good news was that all the Project Transformation volunteers - more than 100 - were there too. That was where they lived.

So I was offered the spare bed in Elizabeth's room, and Dianne gave me her charger to use all that night, and Sarah showered me with understanding, a towel, and several changes of clothes, and Jaime gathered up everything else I needed to spend the night.

Someone had given me a travel-size deodorant and a toothbrush right as I walked in. Seeing Guillermo - we call him Pantene because he has beautiful hair — and just having him sit with me while I cried was a blessing. They were all good Samaritans, in the midst of their own fear and panic.

The dividing lines between blue and black are not so strict. I grieve with Dallas for the lives of the law enforcement officers unjustly killed. I grieve with Dallas for Alton Sterling, Jose Cruz and many many others unjustly killed. We are all Dallas. We are all formed and love by God.

Nancy Visser is a copy editor at The Dallas Morning News and a member of Grace United Methodist Church.