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.

 

 

 

Getting back in the swing of things.

I got back from my R&R three days ago and it has been a non-stop blur of meetings, counseling, and services. 

It is so nice to be back with the Soldiers and help point them towards God’s peace, grace, and mercy.  When I walked into my office, the first thing that I noticed is that I had apparently “won” the Battalion piñata for the month.  What happens is that at the end of every month, the Battalion gets together and has a meal and shares stories about stupid things that people have done.  Then we all vote by round of applause for the dumbest event, and that person gets to keep the piñata in their office for the next month.
 

Why did I win?  Those of you that know me know that I have a mischievous streak in me.  One day I was in the command group office and found that the Battalion Executive officer had left his ID card in his computer and left the room.  So, I decided that I would add a mustache to his picture.  It was a really great mustache and made him look a lot like Luigi of the Mario Brothers.  I quickly left without being spotted and went back to my office.  I laughed at the thought of him not noticing the mustache for weeks or months.  It only took him 10 minutes.  I later found out that instead of using dry erase markers, I had accidentally used a permanent marker.  So, needless to say, the piñata has found a nice home with me for the month.
 
For those of you praying for us:

I ask that you pray for God to put me in the right places at the right times.  I have over 800 Soldiers, 7 different companies, and they are located on over 11 different forward operating bases.  I cannot see how I am going to be able to get to them all as much as I want to before my assistant goes on his R&R.  We also have to coordinate carefully with the other Battalion Chaplain because we cannot both be gone at the same time because of our mission to the convoys and the mortuary affairs Soldiers. 

I also ask that you pray for our Soldiers and their family members.  More specifically, I ask that you pray that God help remind everyone of the worth in their relationships.  There is a huge cost that our Soldiers and family members pay while being deployed.  And, when you cannot be around each other much, the costs appear to outweigh the benefits.  “I don’t see anything left to hold us together,” is what I often hear from my Soldiers in regards to their relationships. 

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Home Sweet Home

I am home!  I flew back on the 25th and have been soaking up ever single second that I can.  My travels between Afghanistan and here were a little difficult for me because somewhere along the way I got some bacteria in me that left me feeling extremely sick and weak.  In the worst for days of it, I lost nine pounds (my apologies to those who had to sit next to me on the flights).  I was literally dizzy as I walked from terminal to terminal in Atlanta and Cleveland.  The doctors gave me some good drugs and I am feeling almost 100 percent better now.  We have gone to parks, played in water, been to a farm to see and feed the animals, and have even gone yard-selling together.  The whole time I have been here Ethan has been saying "Daddy this" and "Daddy that."  He will come up and grab my hand and want me to take him somewhere and do something with him. 

The rest of my R&R is going to be free of sickness I hope!  We are traveling to a waterpartk/hotel tomorrow and will spend a couple days there before we head to the zoo in Syracuse where I will jump on my flight back to Afg, and Lindsay and the boys will start their drive down to North Carolina to visit with family. 

It is such a blessing to me to see how God has taken care of my family.  Ethan and William are always into something and Lindsay and right there, keeping them from killing each other and taking care of all the tasks of the house.  How did I get such a great soul-mate?  There is a growing number of my Soldiers who will be coming home from our deployment to broken homes.  I don't think that deployment in and of itself causes divorces, but it is a clear stressor on top of other issues that are present.  Because of all this stress, some relationships break apart and cause a lot of harm to those involved in them.

Please be praying for our Soldiers and family members who are running a little low on morale right now. 
I also ask that you pray for the Religious Support Teams as we try to plan activities and events to help bring Soldiers together with each other, and to help Soldiers grow closer and more open with their families. 

Blessings!