There... To here... And Now...

I lack the ability to correctly type out just how amazing and beautiful the past few days have been for me.  I have intentionally waited a couple days to post this thinking that it would get easier to say, but it has not and I know that I owe you all the last post of my first deployment. 

I say that I owe it to you in all seriousness. One of the companies that I supported was the mortuary affairs Soldiers who deal with almost every fallen hero in the country of Afghanistan.  In my year tour I saw many fallen comrades going home.  When we got on the plane in Kyrgyzstan, I realized that all the Soldiers that I traveled to Afghanistan with were there with me.  That is powerful stuff and with teary eyes I could not say "thank you God," enough as our plane left the ground headed for home.    

In those last couple weeks we lived in tents and were all on our toes because there was a threat of a Suicide Bomber somewhere in the area.  There is not a whole lot that gets me edgy, but the thought of being so close to going home and having myself or some of my Soldiers killed in that way had me worked up.  Earlier in the year, when I found myself in a tricky situation I was praying to God and just reminding him that he had led me to that place, on that day.  My mind went back to the days in high school and college when I would go rock climbing and someone would be at the other end of the rope to keep you from falling in case you slip.  I felt at the end of the rope and found myself asking, "on belay?"  Immediately I felt Gods arms around my spirit and a clear and powerful "Belay on."  So, knowing that God has the other end of the rope, I spent those last couple weeks fully engaged with our replacements, my Soldiers that were getting ready to come home, and those who I would be leaving to the new Chaplain.

After flying for around 18 hours we arrived at home.  When the plane touched down there was just a huge applause and we all felt the relief of being home.  It was dark and rainy when we finally made it to the hanger where all of our family and friends had gathered for our welcome home ceremony.  I was cold, but it was great to feel the rain on my skin (Afghanistan's average rainfall for Jul-Aug is .01).  We all lined up and started walking into the room.  I was in the last of five rows, and to hear the cheering and clapping for those in front of me was indescribable.  I imagine the cloud of witnesses spoken of in Hebrews 12 to be something like this.  I marched in and immediately saw Lindsay, the boys, my parents, and a couple other chaplain families.  We ran to each other and I grabbed all my gear and went home.

And now I sit in my home, with as much privacy as my two sons will give me, and have gone three days without wearing either a PT uniform, or my Multi-cam Uniform.  

So, "thus far" has taken me into Afghanistan and back again.  I cannot thank you enough for your prayers and support that you have given to me, my family, and my Soldiers.  For me, I will be moving to another post in the summer and will begin my training as a hospital chaplain for the Army.

God bless you all,

Thick Joy and Pain

I am glad to be able to shake hands with the Soldiers that are here to take our place.  It does not seem real that we are so close to going home to be with our families.  It does not seem real that I left a two month old and will soon go back to a 14 month old.  People always ask if it is hard to leave your family for a year.  I don't really ever know how to answer that.  I can tell you about what happened a week or so ago:  I called home and experienced a "first."  My oldest son picked up the phone and said, "Hello daddy," in his funny little voice.  I have never had that happen before.  When I said hello back he exclaimed, "Ethan daddy phone!" and laughed with joy.  We started singing the ABC's together and finished by exchanging sound effects.  Lindsay picked up the other phone and as we spoke, Ethan would chime in with statements about his day, what he was doing, and what he wanted.  I got more joy out of that conversation than anything I can remember.  Then, as the conversation continued I mentioned something about where I was.  The way he says Afghanistan is really funny and hoped to hear him say it again.  However, instead he got quiet and in a serious voice said, "Ethan daddy gone."  That did not, and does not take my joy away, but it cuts me deep to have a son that identifies me with being "gone." 

...

So, it is a deep joy and a deep pain that I feel.  I continue to believe that deployment does not break marriages and families, but just magnifies what was already there.  That being said, I am already noticing the curiosity in myself and my Soldiers about what going home and reintegrating is going to be like. 

For those praying for us:

      I was reading Romans 8 a couple days ago and the word "Groans" in verse 18-31 stuck out to me.  Creation groans, humanity groans, and the Holy Spirit intercedes with groans on our behalf.  There are times that things are so bad that all you can do is groan.  I ask that you pray for the groans of the Soldiers going through tough times.  Specifically, that they are given the intense blessing of feeling like their groans and pains are heard.  And, that they be reminded that they have a heavenly father, family, leaders, and battle buddies that care about them.     

I finally got access to my blog!

Good Morning World!  I have finally gotten access to my blog again and wanted to post some pictures of things that have been going on over the past couple weeks. 

These first two pictures show how large and small the vehicles are here at Bagram.  Honestly it is quite entertaining to see the little white "VanGo" driving next to one of our tactical vehicles.  I keep telling everyone that I am going to buy the little van and take it home to FT. Drum.  It would easily fit into one of our containers, and once I got it home I would put all these "high-speed" stickers on it like you see on some Soldiers cars.  I have only had the privilege of driving the little van once, and its probably a good thing because everytime I would see a Soldier that was my height or taller I would pull over and offer to give them a ride just to see them try and fit into the seats.  

 They all thought that I was being nice, but its just really funny to me to see big people in this vehicle. 

Everyone likes it when the chaplain shows up with snacks!  In this pictures I am handing out snacks out of a care box that I had received the day before.  I think that I have mentioned it before, but it funny to me how many Soldiers will see me with the care supplies and, out of sheer excitement, start cussing like crazy.  "OH ------ ----- ------, the chaplain has snacks for us!"  And then, they make eye contact with me and start apologizing for their language. 

 

The picture below is the beginnings of the new addition to our office.  Well, honestly our original office was little more than a closet so this new room almost triples the amount of room that we have.  This makes my assistant very happy because he no longer has to leave when I am counseling with Soldiers.  And I am very glad that we are able to leave the "fox hole" much better than when we got here. 

A couple days ago I was given the honor of recieving the Bronse Star Medal.  This is myself and Col. Ryan, my Brigade Commander just after the ceremony.  I am very pleased to recieve this honor and owe it to my assistant who makes all my crazy ideas happen, the Soldiers that show up, and my command who is always supporting me to "be where the Soldiers are."  So to clarify, I recieved this award as an End of Tour award.  This is not due to a specific event as if I took out a whole enemy position with my bible or something like that.  It is because my command has recognized the job that I have done throughout this year to be above and beyond what I was supposed to do.  At the beginning of our deployment I had the goal of doing more battlefield circulations than anyone in the brigade except the brigade commander.  After adding all of our trips up, we have traveled almost 6500 miles in the past year. 

This is a picture of myself and my boss, the Battalion Commander, LTC Matthews.  From day one, he has always supported me and said that his goal for me was to be with Soldiers where they were.  That is a great gift to a Chaplain because it means that instead of spending our time sitting in meetings, we can be out and about getting to know the troops and ministering to them.  Oh, and the head at the bottom is my Battalion CSM Phillips.    

Below is myself and my assistant, SGT Carrasquillo just before a worship service.

This is my new home for a couple weeks.  They are force provider tents that everyone in my battalion is staying in so that our replacements can move straight into thier rooms.  I have heard a couple of negative remarks about our new living arrangments, but for the most part everyone is just really happy to be one step closer to being home! 

And below is a picture of the Bagram mountians just before sunrise on a morning that we were getting ready to fly out to another base to visit Soldiers. 

For those of you praying for us: 

      I would ask that you pray for our safety.  I dont want to spend much time on it, but there has been some craziness in the past week or so that has the potential to do a lot of harm.  My prayer is that God confuse those who have no regard for the lives of others, and keep his protection around our Soldiers, civilians, and Soldiers of other nationalities. 
     I also ask that you keep all of us and our families in your prayers.  It is an odd feeling to know that you are getting ready to go home to a family that is a year older.  And, there are some that are going home to empty homes and depleated bank accounts.

God is good!

Its Sunday afternoon here.  We have a chapel service that meets at 1000 on Sunday mornings and today was one of the best services since we have been here.  As we walked to the DFAC afterwards I just kept saying "whew" under my breath because God is just so good!   
Our service is supported by three chaplains, myself, the Brigade Chaplain, and another Battalion Chaplain.  The rotation that we have is that one chaplain will preach, one will be the liturgist, and the third will have the Sunday off.  On the Sundays that I am not preaching I help lead the worship by singing while my assistant plays the keyboard.  Today, the Brigade Chaplain was the liturgist, the other BN Chaplain was the preacher, and I helped with music.   
This has been a long and difficult week.  The chaplain that preached today was not sure that he would make it back in time because he was stuck at a FOB.  The brigade chaplain has faced some struggles this week with all the different details of all the Religious Support Teams in the area, and I felt worn out.  For me it feels more like being weighed down by everything that my Soldiers are going through.  When I sit down in the crap of life with Soldiers, it sticks to me a little bit and I have to find times to refresh myself and clean some of that stuff off.
So, you have three tired Chaplains who would probably all say that they were not "feeling it" as the walked into that service this morning.  And yet, right there God shows up, rocks our socks off, and then with a smile points at us and says, "See!  It's not about you, its about me!  It does not matter what you feel or don't.  It does not matter how tired you are or what burdens you are carrying.  This is about me and I am ready so hold on!"  ... whew!  Praise the Lord! 

About two months to go!

I am so happy that the month of July is done with!  For whatever reason, a number of us knew that it was going to be a tough month.  On top of the difficult times, three months is just too far away to be getting ready to go home.  All of us have our missions to complete, and that does not stop until the day that our replacements take over. 

Now, with closer to two months to go, I am letting myself think a little more about coming home.  What fun to think about being able to celebrate my birthday, thanksgiving, Christmas, Ethan's birthday, and new years (and on top of all those add my mothers birthday, two sisters-in-law, and my sisters birthday... forgive me if i forgot someone)! 

But enough of that, I want to share some good news.  My assistant and I are currently in the middle of a battlefield circulation.  We flew out on Wednesday, spent the night in another area and flew back to Bagram for less than a day before we hopped on another flight.  In my time at Bagram I started my usual pattern of getting all my dirty clothes to the laundry, and cleaning my room and my gear.  I just happened to walk through one of the recreation areas (to talk smack to some Soldiers about ping-pong) and a Soldier walked up to me and asked if we could talk outside for a little bit.  I said sure, and we walked out to the smoke shack and there, after talking for a while he re-dedicated his life to the Lord.  "I feel an empty hole in my life and nothing seems to be able to fill it," he told me as we talked.  As we talked, prayed, and even shed some tears.  Good stuff.    I ask that you pray for this Soldier as he makes these first steps in deepening his relationship with God.  I also ask that you pray me as I chat, share, and pray with this Soldier. 

Once I get back home I hope to be able to add some pictures. 

Thank you for your prayers! 

Prayers

It is hot and dusty here.  I have been really busy the past week or so, and it seems to me that July is going to be a pretty busy month for all of us.  My personal laptop has seen better days and is not letting me on the internet at the moment.  This means that the pictures will continue to be few and far between until I find another way to get them loaded. 

The ministry here is going well.  There are about 200 more Soldiers that I am responsible for now then when I first arrived, and that keeps me constantly busy.  There is not a lot that I can talk about now, but I wanted to make sure that I pass along some information from some Soldiers who specifically asked me to tell people to pray for them. 

-The first Soldier is such an inspiration to me.  He came to me just a few days ago and was almost in tears as he talked about how his oldest child has come back into a good relationship with him, and with God.  He talked about all the wrong that the child had done, and admitted to some mistakes that he had made as well.  He told me about how this deployment has been one of the best things for their relationship because they had to put more work into their communication, and were faced with the fact that the Soldier is deploying and will be in dangerous situations.     

-One Soldier is really struggling with some others in their unit.  It seems that a lot of this is due to the fact that after spending months and months living in the same room with other people can create big tension at times.   

-Another Soldier has struggles at home and is coming to terms with the fact that they are going to be going home to a broken family.   

-Another Soldier is really struggling with whether they should get out of the Army now, or sign another contract for a few more years.  

-And finally, for myself.  Specifically, I need God to be very clear to me about what career path I need to take.  Chaplains can concentrate in many different areas such as being a family life chaplain, a hospital chaplain, working at a school house, and a few others.  It is close to the time that I am going to need to start making those desires known and, honestly, I go back and forth about what it is that God is leading me to.   

Thank you for the prayers. 

Visiting other areas...

In the past week my assistant and I have been focused on seeing our Soldiers in other areas.  Battlefield circulation is one of the many things I love about this job.  Going out and visiting Soldiers is almost always fun for me.  Not only does it put things in perspective for me and my assistant as we see how life is in other areas, but I also enjoy getting to the smaller areas where the dust and traffic are not so bad.  My biggest hindrance for making these trips is the flights.  I hate flying...  A couple days ago I got to experience my first combat landing. If you don't know what that is, I have attached a picture of it.

Personally, I find the picture insulting because it is not what my

assistant and I went through in the back of the plane. He told me, "I thought they were trying to make a tornado or something." So, I have made a modification to the picture to more accurately portray what we experienced. 

 

Once we got our boots on the ground we met with all our troops and hand delivered some goodies to them. One of the areas was attacked recently and the Soldiers there are not getting the same foods that they are use too. Yes, food is available but its the same stuff again and again. These Soldiers were very happy to see me show up with Ramen Noodles, cans of fruit, and snacks.  While we were there, A couple Soldiers really wanted to walk us around the area and show us what all had happened in the attack a couple weeks ago. As we walked it became very clear to me that this Soldier was needing to talk about what he went through.  As we made our way around the base, he started talking about how all of his Soldiers immediately snapped into "help mode" and helped some wounded Soldiers to the nearest medical station.  "I have not always been a big believer in God," he told me.  And the after a pause he added, "but I just don't see how so many of us were so close to such danger and didn't get killed."  As we made our way back to the company area he pointed out the damages done to the chapel (its the most beautiful chapel in AFG. in my opinion).  The back wall is buckling a little bit and the stain glass was blown out.  But the building still stands and work is being done on it to repair it. 

 

For those praying for us:

I ask that you pray for our chapel service on Sunday mornings.  I ask for God to make himself known in such a big way that it is obvious to everyone that it is God moving, not whatever Chaplain is preaching, or whoever is singing that Sunday.  If we go home and have not had a meaningful encounter with the Creator of us all, then we have been ripped off.