SHERMAN, TX – Sunday hundreds of Vietnamese Roman Catholics returned home from the Marian Days festival. They stopped to remember their friends and family who didn't make it.

The Vietnamese faithful offered up prayers of their own language.

"At the time they went to the other side, is right here," says Kham Lam, a Houston parishioner who attended Marian Days and stopped to pay his respects.

The passengers on the bus were devout, the bedrock of their parishes. They made the trek year after year. Lam was close friends with a couple who died in the crash.

"It's a great loss. They contributed great time, money, all the people relating,” he says.

Some laid flowers at the accident site, taking pictures to remember where tragedy struck. Even food from the bus remains on the ground, remnants of snacks packed for the trip.

"It's very, very painful for us," says Thomas Nguyen, a Plano resident who also attended Marian Days.

Houston parishes took multiple buses up to the retreat, as 60 thousand Vietnamese Roman Catholics descended on Carthage, Missouri.

"We were waiting for them, saved a spot for them,” Lam says. “A tent. They never showed up."

They prayed in Carthage and still pray for the wounded and departed. Many are like family.

One of John Trung’s close friends was involved in the crash.

"His wife survived, but he's in a coma right now. But his uncle, his mother-in-law, they all passed away."

Karen Nguyen is from Plano and visited the site today. A woman she met at the conference was affected by the crash. Her sister died, at age 27.

“I think we know how the family feels. It must be really painful," she says, with tears in her eyes.

The group sings a prayer to Mary asking her to console them.

"When people die by sickness it’s different. Accidentally, nobody's prepared for it. They're just asleep, and suddenly die. So what about their soul?" Lam says.

These worshippers rely on prayer to remember these loved ones lost.