A friend I know is an officer with the KCMO PD, and he does double duty as a Major in the armed forces. He is part of a civilian affairs unit and recently redeployed. Just to keep it real, here is what goes on when a serviceman or woman of that rank leaves to do their duty for us
Flying in Opposite Directions
This past week, I was able to spend 3 days with Chris at Ft. Bragg. I just flew home today. Chris also got on a plane and flew to Kuwait. He’ll be there for about two weeks before moving forward. He will not have a definite address until they know where they’ll be in Iraq. As of right now, even that is uncertain. He was supposed to work in Tikrit, but with the military nothing is ever definite so pray about the location of where he’ll be.
Ft. Bragg
I had visited Chris at Ft. Bragg at least 4x in 2003 while the unit was waiting for Turkey’s border to open up at the beginning of the war. I had flashbacks being on base again. I did his laundry for him, then followed him around and experienced a typical day with him.
He deals with a lot of people issues in a day! He had to release an officer from responsibility, counsel another officer, fight for two promotions for his Soldiers and stood his ground on a lot of other issues in order to take care of his personnel. I told him that many people had been telling me that they were praying for him. He said to let you know that your prayers are working on his behalf. It is a very stressful environment and they hadn’t even left the country yet! However, Chris is handling everything very well. He is a good leader. He has some very good young Soldiers under him. We took 5 of his guys out to dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. We celebrated his birthday. The restaurant embarrasses you, so the guys have good videos to bribe him in the future!
The Green Ramp
This is the location where Soldiers fly out. This morning, Chris used his last hour in the States to call his whole family – that would be 9 other siblings and his parents! He also called Hope and Andrew at their school and talked to them. Today was Andrew’s birthday. Hope’s was last week. They were very brave on the phone with him. He cried. They didn’t.
ThanksMany thanks to all of you for praying for us. It is too much to go into detail how God is working in the little things in our lives. We see His Hand in the weather condition allowing me to fly to/from NC, in an encouraging phone call at just the right time, in the way He gives us grace to deal with unpleasant people and circumstances.
They are still in the air as I write this, so pray when you read this.
