Gone Fishin!

Well, after 18 months on station at FT Jackson the mission of the 2-485th Unit Ministry team has come to an end. We have seen almost 5000 new soldiers some through here. There have been 30 full 9 week training cycles. In that time we have had about 75 Sunday services. 75 times soldiers gathered together to worship God. 75 times they sang songs together prayed together. We've seen God do some amazing things. We saw one young man literally brought back to life on the floor of his barracks after a cardiac arrest. We have heard countless tales of God healing family members and soldiers. We've seen young soldiers push through difficulty and overcome. We've also seen over 400 of these embrace for the first time in their lives the salvation of Jesus Christ. Many had never been in a church at all. Some were atheists that found the light of Christ brought a freedom that they never dreamed possible. One young soldier last summer came to me after coming to grips with his own mortality...

We were in the field this week and I finally completed the Motorcycle safety Course so I decided try out the off-road capabilities of my new bike. I'm less concerned about the bike now and more concerned with the rider. The bike performed like I thought it would, but the sand here makes for treacherous riding if you aren't used to riding in the really loose stuff. I was able to pack all my field gear on the back and spent several days in the woods with the soldiers. We did two field services where we took communion together, it was a great time of worship. In the picture to the right are my buddies from Echo CO's command team. This week we are all getting together so that the Chaplain can destroy them again in a spirited bout of Halo! More to follow!

Just thought I'd put of few pictures of us at work up the web for you, more to follow!

Got this devotional in my email inbox. Thought it might be a blessing to you today Jesus of Nazareth was sentenced to death by a vain puppet of the Roman government acting as district governor of Jerusalem. He was nailed to a cross by a handful of Roman soldiers who happened to be on duty, and left there to die. He died sometime around three o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday. Of a broken heart, by the way. And we call it Good Friday, of all strange things, because of what it affected. An innocent man, the Son of God, bleeding for the sins of the world. Standing in for us, as Jack gives his life for Rose in Titanic, as Sydney Carton stands in to die for Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities, or as Aslan dies on the stone table to ransom the traitor Edmund. We rebelled, and the penalty for our rebellion was death. To lose us was too great a pain for God to bear, and so he took it upon himself to rescue us. The Son of God came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). You...

I woke this morning at the usual 0450, headed to the bathroom for the first thing and after finishing the next thing I remember is waking up on the floor with my face in a pool of black liquid. For a minute I thought I was dreaming. I thought, what is all this black stuff everywhere? I noticed my face felt a bit weird so I pulled my hand close and notice the black stuff was dripping, running in fact, out of my face. I knew then that this wasn't black but red, it was just dark in my bedroom. I had very little situational awareness. The first thing out of my mouth was, "Jesus, help me!" I gathered myself up back to the bathroom and turned on the light and saw what looked like a cross between a horror movie and a Ric Flair/Harley Race wrestling match. There was blood everywhere, on me, on the floor on the door. I thought at first that I had aneurysm, but then noticed the blood gushing from a gash above my left eye. "Whew!" I thought, that was a close one, I'm n...

That's my boy! Dad's are mighty proud critters and I'm no exception. I've been mobilized away from my family since March of 2005. That is a long time for a dad to be away from his kids. I get precious few opportunities to be with my children. Little boys especially need their dads. Last week was a horribly busy week. I had been planning this campout with little Jack for several months. Wouldn't you know it, life got complicated at the end of last week. I became discouraged at the level of busyness I faced. Problems just kept coming up. Undoubtedly it was warfare to keep me from building into the life of my little man. I vowed I would make it a good weekend. My wife also reminded me of the crucial nature of this. She's wise like that. I made it home and we camped, we fished, we shot BB guns, we shot bows and arrows, we sat around a fire with other dads and sons and told stories, we ate hotdogs cooked on coat hangers and we built into the lives of our sons. We wer...

I can today with great thankfulness to all you that prayed that I and my team finished the Army 10 miler! What an incredible feeling to finish a race like that. I wish you all could have been there. My wife, kids, mother-n-law and my mom all went with me. Also there were Drill SGTS and other soldiers from FT Jackson. In that group included, Scott, Mitch, Jason, Glenn, Mark G, "Chewy", Mark J and 24,000 other fine folks. It was a beautiful day about 65 degrees at the start. The course wound from the Pentagon through downtown DC, by the Washington monument, the Mall and the capital. We then ran back across the Potomac and finished at the Pentagon. It was amazing! All along the way people cheered for us and bands played. I had no idea I was even tired till the last mile or so. Inspiring soldiers that had lost limbs in our current conflict ran the race despite their missing parts. In fact that was the name of their team, "Missing Parts in Action". Eccentric folks ran to...

To the left is a picture of one of my soldiers from C-CO. He just got through with qulaification. He's good to go! He wanted to tell his mom that he's doing great, so here he is mom! He's doing great! After seeing over 5000 of these guys come through here I still get thrilled when they approach graduation. I get to see such an amazing transformation take place in these young people. When they leave they really are different. And they keep on coming. In spite of what the political climate is, these young men and women keep coming to serve. Keep that thought close today.

Normally I write short posts. I know your time is valuable. Bear with me on this one. I got carried away in the past! The picture to the left is my son (on the right) and his buddy Daniel I grew up on a street with all boys. There’s just something about a group of wild untamed boys to make life interesting. I guess that is the way we were. It was glorious. My brother Steve and I had tons of friends on our road and I’m grateful for the experience of coming up where I did. There were the Rumple boys, Ricky and Jeff and their dad Mutt. Mutt was a small engine genius; he could fix anything. The Boggs boys lived on Edgewood Rd. too. Chet, David and Joe were their names. Chet was like 7 years older than us. I always remember him picking on us and making crude jokes about our genitals. Half the time I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I laughed anyhow. David was just two years older than us, he was a part of our group, until he got older and started hanging out with girls. Joe ...