God Bless America

As we prepare to celebrate our freedom tomorrow I wanted
to share this with you:

My oldest son, Seth, graduated from Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX a little over a week ago. My daughter Kate, my daughter-in-law Jessica, grandson Colby, and myself went down for the ceremonies. Everything was a new and great experience for us. One of the things that was optional was church at one of the Base Chapels on Sunday morning. Seth asked if we wanted to go with him and, of course, we eagerly accepted the invite!

It was a really cool experience! The whole front half of the church was full of trainees shoulder to shoulder from one side of the auditorium to the other side. The music and atmosphere was contemporary worship with a band. Everyone was celebrating, clapping their hands, raising their hands, swaying - it was a 'joyful noise' service. The back half of the auditorium was full of the grads - Airmen - and their families. As I stood there watching these big strong men and small women praising & worshiping, some with tears streaming down their faces, I began to think that this may be the first time that some of these young people have ever been in a church service or had the opportunity to hear the gospel message. I became very interested to see what the chaplain had to say. Was it going to be a 'feel good' message or a 'meat' message. The sermon was to be about family and I wondered if that meant literal family, spiritual family, or military family. Turned out he talked about all 3 and brought them all together. He did an awesome job of combining the gospel message with the military message. He explained what needed to be done to surrender your life to Christ and made himself available to anyone who wanted to talk with him. Young men & women are graduating every week from Lackland and a new group of trainees comes in every week. Each group was recognized & encouraged at the end of every service. Every week they show the video from Mark Shultz' "Letters From War" - we were late and missed it though.

The military has a great opportunity to reach a large segment of people who come from a variety of backgrounds. They encourage the trainees at Basic to attend church and provide a variety of chapels to meet the various worship choices. I realize that these young people are homesick and in a vulnerable state but our Heavenly Father uses every situation to speak to his children and draw them near to him. God is in control and His work is being done all around our country and world.

God is Good!!

I am proud to be a citizen of this great country and I am proud to be a child of God!


I love this picture of Seth & Colby after church on Sunday.