Burnette Chapel Church Of Christ Fellowship Unbroken Faith

Nashville church tries to move forward amid shooting trauma, questions
USA Today
Holly Meyer
September 30, 2017

"I sat out here. It was early Monday morning and I was looking up and I could see Orion's Belt," Carter said. "I mean just how great — don’t understand why — but how great God truly is." Terry Carter

The sound of gunfire haunts Terry Carter.

She and the young students in her Bible class barricaded a classroom door one week ago as a masked man opened fire at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, killing one woman and injuring the minister and six others, police said.

The shooter did not go into the classroom, but the Sunday morning mayhem clings to Carter's thoughts.

"You can’t get some of the stuff out of your head for a while," Carter said. "I’ll gradually get there. But those sounds. The pop."

Carter and other members of the small Antioch church are trying to process what happened in the violent attack. In the midst of the pain and big unanswered questions, the congregation is moving forward.

The crime scene tape is gone and so is the carpet in the chapel. The 25-year-old suspect, Emanuel Samson, is in jail on a homicide charge. They have buried 38-year-old Melanie Crow, who was gunned down at the end of last week's service. And the victims who remain in the hospital are in stable condition.

After the Wednesday night service ended, Carter stood in the church parking lot chatting. Her great-grandchildren played nearby.

"It’s kind of a relief that we can get together and have a fellowship," Carter said. "That’s what we’re supposed to do, have fellowship and encourage each other. It’s going to take a whole lot of encouragement."

She was not certain the Wednesday service would occur nor that she would want to attend Sunday. But Carter will be there equipped with plans for better classroom safety.

She remembers hearing the first shot. It sounded too close. Carter put her finger to her lips, told the children to be quiet and turned off the classroom lights. Together, they moved furniture in front of a door and she cycled through scenarios in her mind.

Carter has her own questions. She knows nothing is guaranteed in life, but her faith is strong and she believes God is everywhere, Carter said.
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Andrew Nelles

Kaitlyn Adams, a member of the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, hugs another church member at the scene after shots were fired at the church on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017, in Antioch, Tenn. (Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean via AP)

Tennessee church suspect may have sought Charleston revenge

Military Chaplain 100 Years of Serving

Military Chaplains Turn 100 Years Old as 'Attacks' on Service Rise
CBN News
04-27-2017

"Chaplains serve as a constant reminder to our troops that God is present with them, especially in a combat environment." Douglas Carver

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the United States' entry into World War I. It's also the 100th anniversary of when U.S. military chaplains made their mark in the U.S. Armed Services, according to Douglas Carver, former U.S. Army chief of chaplains.

Less than 150 chaplains served in the Army and National Guard when America entered the war against Germany.

That number grew to more than 2,300 by the end of WWI in 1918, and Carver says that rise secured the role of chaplains in today's Armed Services.

He calls chaplaincy the "ministry of presence."

"Chaplains serve as a constant reminder to our troops that God is present with them, especially in a combat environment," Carver, the executive director of chaplaincy for the North American Mission Board, wrote to Baptist Press.
read more here

Billionaire Pushes Veterans Court California Expansion With Own Funds

Billionaire’s transformation from real estate to criminal justice reform
San Francisco Chronicle
By Laurel Rosenhall
April 16, 2017

Almost half the counties in California have veterans courts. Hughes wants to see them expand statewide and has offered to pay $100,000 to cover half the cost of the study.

A cattle-ranching billionaire headed into Gov. Jerry Brown’s office the other day with redemption on his mind.

Redemption for prisoners who wind up behind bars because their own tortured childhoods led them to lives of crime. Redemption for veterans who bring home wartime scars that cause addiction and violence. And redemption, perhaps, even for himself — born into privilege, born again as a Christian, and determined to make a difference with his wealth.

“If you listen to the stories of the men and women who have been incarcerated, it’s horrible what they’ve been through,” B. Wayne Hughes Jr. said as he stood outside Brown’s office.

“And when you look at the amount of money we’re spending ... we’re getting horrible results. All we’re doing is making better criminals.”

Hughes, 58, was in Sacramento to lobby for a bill he’s backing to help veterans who have committed low-level crimes. It’s a noncontroversial bill with a small price tag, so his meetings in the state Capitol weren’t so much about making a hard sell. Instead, they marked one more step in Hughes’ transformation from Republican real estate magnate to Libertarian advocate for criminal justice reform.

The rancher, whose father founded the Public Storage company, gave nearly $1.3 million to Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that turned nonviolent property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, allowing some prisoners to be released. He also helps fund a prison ministry and runs a ranch near Paso Robles that provides faith-based mental health treatment for veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Hughes’ interest in helping the downtrodden began when he came to Christianity about 20 years ago and evolved when he met Chuck Colson, the former Nixon administration official who pleaded guilty to Watergate crimes.
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How Will This Year End for Veterans?

How Will 2017 End?

Combat PTSD Wounded Times

Kathie Costos

January 1, 2017

It may sound like a strange question on this first day of the New Year, but considering how last year ended, it is a reasonable question to ask. There are many uncertainties in life. Instead of recapping a year that has already happened, I am wondering what we will allow to happen this year.

Yesterday ended the year for me with going to my mailbox and finding gifts from my friend Vietnam veteran Gunny. He sent me a patch with my new road name for Semper Fidelis America, "Know Buddy" along with a memorial cross that says "I wear this cross for those who can't."

Then I filmed another friend, Jonnie, a Marine veteran, delivering an inspiring message about living with PTSD and healing so that this New Year could end differently than it ended for too many veterans.

This morning I went to Oviedo Presbyterian Church to listen to my friend, Rev. Karen Estes preach. As always, listening to her, witnessing her love of God and passion, I cried. She told the story of Artaban the 4th Magi arriving late in Bethlehem.

The story is an addition and expansion of the account of the Biblical Magi, recounted in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It tells about a "fourth" wise man (accepting the tradition that the Magi numbered three), a priest of the Magi named Artaban, one of the Medes from Persia. Like the other Magi, he sees signs in the heavens proclaiming that a King had been born among the Jews. Like them, he sets out to see the newborn ruler, carrying treasures to give as gifts to the child - a sapphire, a ruby, and a "pearl of great price". However, he stops along the way to help a dying man, which makes him late to meet with the caravan of the other three wise men. Because he missed the caravan, and he can't cross the desert with only a horse, he is forced to sell one of his treasures in order to buy the camels and supplies necessary for the trip. He then commences his journey but arrives in Bethlehem too late to see the child, whose parents have fled to Egypt. He saves the life of a child at the price of another of his treasures.

And with the last jewel, he used it to help a woman being sold as a slave in order to pay the debt of her father. While some may look at the story and think about the horrors that happened that dark day when innocent babies were slaughtered, in the midst of all that evil, there were also witnesses to love when one of the many gave his gifts intended for God to help people in need.

As Christians, Rev. Estes reminded us, we are called, to not just witness love, but to respond with love and courage when we see evil, suffering and injustice around us. That is what Christ not only preached but by what He ended His life on earth with. He asked for His Father to forgive those who nailed Him to the Cross along with those who had abandoned Him.

Did you know that soldiers witnessed love in the midst of war? It happens all the time, no matter if they acknowledge it or not. The original idea to join the military came from a deep desire to serve even though they knew the hardships they would encounter. Even though they knew they would have to leave their families to risk their lives with strangers they would call "brother" bonded together by a love so deep they were willing to sacrifice themselves for. Even though they knew that should they come home wounded or scared by slashes to their soul, they were willing. They were willing, even though for decades, witnesses to their suffering without the care they were promised by the government deciding they needed to fight the battles failed to fulfill the promise to take care of them.

Yet they had reached out their hand to help, shed tears for those who had fallen and prayed for those wounded. No matter how much evil in battle they had to participate in, at the end of the day, had the enemy forces laid down their arms, they would have welcomed the end of battle. It was not motivated by evil they risked everything. It was motivated by a courageous love that had no limits.

We, as witnesses to that love, have not stood up against the injustice they face. 

We allow them to fight our nations battles and then fight the nation that sent them to war to have their wounds tended to. 

We allow folks to run around the country talking about how they die by their own hands yet never once utter the words of why they should live after surviving war.

We allow the Congress to avoid their responsibility in all of this when they do have jurisdiction over what the VA does or fails to do. If the VA fails to take care of veterans, the failure falls in the lap of members of Congress, yet it is us, allowing this to continue for decades, because we failed to hold the overseers accountable.

I have witnessed this all my life when my Dad had to fight for what he needed after his service and then, when my husband had to fight for what he needed. I have witnessed this with the over 27,000 posts on this site, countless emails and phone calls over the years, as more and more suffer from our silence.

I have witnessed miracles, great and small as much as I have witnessed innocent lives being destroyed by power-hungry, greedy men, not caring about who has to pay the price as long as they get what they want.

I have witnessed this in the veterans community as more and more wonder what good do push-ups do them as they are pushed away from families? What good does it do any of them for some to take walks when everyone they knew has walked away from them? What good does it do them to pray for hope when they are told that "God only gives us what we can handle" as if God did it to them?

No my friends, I am not the one they need. I've already proven that when after over 3 decades I am still screaming in this empty room with walls full of "accomplishments" yet the results are far worse than even I imaged they would ever become.

I have witnessed unlimited love when folks like Jonnie pushing past his own pain, his own reluctance to speak of this heartache he carries because others do not know the other cross he carries is that of hope and miracles of love that also showed up when he needed them the most.

I have witnessed veterans doing as Artaban did, giving all they had intended for God to be used in God's name because someone needed them. They are by "brothers" in Point Man International Ministries running around the country offering hope, showing veterans how to heal and then standing by their side when everyone else has walked away from them.

I have witnessed veterans on the brink of ending their battle, heal and then reach back to help other veterans out of their own darkness by shining their light.

Last year began with this,

PTSD New Year Take A Cup of Kindness Yet

So here's to a hopeful New Year when you understand PTSD does not mean you are weak but came from the strength of your core, just feeling things more than others. Know that you changed because of what you survived and as a survivor, you can change again to live a happier life.
May 2016 be the year when you remember the past without the bitterness and taste the kindness that is within your power.

Surviving sadness at Christmas

Surviving sadness at Christmas
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
December 20, 2012

When Christmas comes the images we see are of happy families, gathering together to open gifts and eat huge meals. We see them going shopping, wrapping gifts, writing out addresses on cards to people to let them know they are thinking of them in this season of "love" and all is right with the world. If you think that is what Christmas is then you won't want to read anymore of this. For too many families, Christmas is not a happy time.

Fifty years ago, I went to see Santa just like every other kid in America. I was thinking about toys because that was what my Mom told me he gave. I didn't ask him for the miracle my family needed. I don't remember what I asked him for, but I bet I asked him for a baby doll since that is what is sitting next to me in the next picture. It was 1962.

This is what Christmas looked like for me and my two brothers. My oldest brother Nick is sitting on the sofa and Warren is on the floor with me. If you think we didn't look too happy, we weren't. Our family was not what most families were but at age of 3 I didn't know that. To me, it was the only "normal" I knew.

We didn't have much money but my Mom did the best she could to buy us what we wanted, what she thought would make us happy even if it was just for a little while. She knew our lives were hard. My Dad was an angry alcoholic at that time. I didn't know other Dads were not like that until I got older and had more friends.

Nick was sweet and smart. He was my hero. He was always there, watching over me. Considering I was always getting into some kind of trouble, he had his hands full. I kept wondering who would be watching over him when I could hear him crying in our room. Three of us had to share the bedroom since we didn't have enough money to buy a house. We lived in an apartment in my uncle's house.

I thought if we had enough money, then we'd be happy and my Dad wouldn't be so mad all the time. I was wrong. By the time my parents bought their first house, my Dad had become violent. He beat my brother Nick most of the time and broke things around the house when he got an argument with my Mom. By then I knew that the way we lived was far from "normal" and I wanted what everyone else had.

In the summer of 1963 my family went to a drive-in movie. One of the things we did together that was a happy time. My Mom made bags of popcorn and we put on our pajamas, piled into the station wagon with our pillows and had our adventure.

When my Mom went to buy sodas, my Dad stayed in the car and my brothers took me to the play ground areas. I wasn't allowed to go into the big kids area by myself. One night, I got away from them, headed to the huge slide, climbed to the top and suddenly I realized it was terrifying without my brother Nick. I froze at the top, clinging to the hand rails. The kid behind me was yelling at me to go, but I couldn't. He pushed me hard on my right side and I went over the left side of the slide. I fell head first onto the concrete. Nick found me laying on the ground and thought I was dead.

Long story short, after the hospital stay, my scull was cracked and I had what we now know as traumatic brain injury. I couldn't talk right anymore but no one connected the changes I went through to the accident.

Things at home were better for a long time. My Dad wasn't drinking much and I wasn't waking up in the middle of the night crying because of the fights. Then it all started again. By Christmas, I wanted peace back so I bashed my head against the wall over and over to try and crack it again thinking my Dad would stop hating and start loving again.

Growing up I looked like everyone else but did not live like everyone else. My Dad stopped drinking when I was 13. He never drank after that. He had a lot of heart attacks and strokes but said he wasn't going to put his family through that again. He passed away at 58. My brother Warren died in his 40's, Nick died at 56 and my Mom passed away at 85.

I've had some years when there was plenty of money to buy gifts and send boxes of Christmas cards out just as I've had years when there was not enough money to pay bills. When most people went to the malls and checked sales, I avoided them.

If you are having a hard time this Christmas, know you are not alone. Here is some advice for surviving sadness at Christmas.

First remember that just because we celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th, it is not the day he was born and it is not the day the wise men showed up with gifts. Joseph and Mary didn't buy Jesus gifts. They gave Him love. He was born into poverty and spent His three years preaching living as a homeless man depending on the kindness of strangers while giving gifts far beyond the tangible. He gave healing, hope and compassion that lasted well beyond a day. He didn't celebrate Christmas but He did celebrate life even though He knew how His life would end and when.

Some want to pretend that the way Christ was crucified was not the way His time on earth was supposed to end. They are missing the real powerful reality of He knew exactly how much He was going to suffer and exactly how many people would turn against Him but he still healed the sick, made the blind see, preached about loving and compassion even though He knew none of that would be there for Him in the end. John was the only friend staying by His side when the rest abandoned Him. His last words were about forgiving.

Christmas shouldn't be about buying gifts or regretting we don't have any to give. It should be about what true love is and what we give that cannot be bought, broken or worn out. It is about giving real love.

There was a time when I thought people really cared about me when my mailbox was full of cards and people showing they were thinking of me. Much like growing up was different than how it seemed, so were these empty thoughts. When I sent out a lot of cards, I got a lot back. The last few years have been financially hard and there hasn't been extra money for cards or stamps. This year I received a total of 5 cards. That made me stop and think about how foolish I had been thinking the world would fall apart if I didn't buy stuff for other people.

They don't care any more or less of me than they would otherwise. Most of the people I know don't really know me, what I do, how I feel, what I need or what I want out of life any more than I know them. Just as it was when I was a kid, normal for one family is not normal for others. Stop thinking that this one day means more than any other day.

Christ should live in our hearts, our deeds, our giving what we have to those in need in great and small ways as long as it is done with love. When you give anything, expect nothing back other than the feeling you get inside doing it. Don't think that you will matter more or less to the people in your life who do really care about you. If you have pain, share it because someone out there will know exactly what you're talking about and feeling just as alone as you do while no one else will understand. Let them know you do understand and give them a gift that will help the rest of their lives.

My gift to you is forgiveness. You didn't deserve to be treated the way you were in your life anymore than I did as a child. You are not responsible for what other people do anymore than I was. Let go of what happened in your own lives by making peace with it and forgive people who harmed you as well as yourself. You are not just some name in an address book that gets pulled out once a year with a check box indicating you sent them a card last year. The people in your life are in your life everyday. The friends you have were strangers at one time, so if you ran out of friends, there is a stranger today that can be your friend tomorrow. What you think is "normal" for everyone else is not really what it seems so stop thinking everyone else is happy, surrounded by love and an abundance of all they want.

I looked like every other kid 50 years ago and asked Santa for what all girls my age asked for but I needed a lot more than he could deliver. What I got sustained me through every heartache and hardship. I got hope that tomorrow will be better than this day and if not, then yesterday didn't destroy me. I survived it then and can do it again today. So can you.

Lt. Col. Stephen "Slade" Mount Stands As Example of Healing PTSD

Spirit of service guides Marines dealing with physical, mental wounds
The San Diego Union Tribune
Carl Prine
December 23, 2016

All devout Christians, these three Marines see Christmas as more than the day to honor the birth of Christ, the man they believe to be the son of God. It also reminds them that their savior’s life and suffering should guide their lives year-round.

Lt. Col. Stephen "Slade" Mount, holding the flight helmet he wore when he was wounded in 2004, is now commander of Wounded Warrior Battalion West at Camp Pendleton. (Nelvin C. Cepeda * Union-Tribune)

Blinded, slumped next to his crumpled chopper at the foot of Iraq’s Najaf cemetery, Stephen “Slade” Mount cupped his gunshot face to keep it from oozing into the street.

He knew he’d never pilot a Huey again. But he never could’ve predicted on that brutal day in 2004 that he’d recover sight in one eye, carve out a long career in the Marine Corps and come to think — in a strange but comforting way — of his terrible wound as a kind of gift.

“I actually became a better Marine officer,” the Southern California native said.

For senior military leaders, he has another message: “Be ready for what you ask for, but be that leader who can show other Marines that it’s OK to ask for help.”
read more here

Looking For God In The Wrong Places

Are you looking for God in the wrong place? 
If we search for Him in the dirt and debris we are looking for Him in the wrong place.

This is a repost from 2012.

Looking for God in the wrong places
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
September 12, 2012

Last night I was watching The Four Crosses at Ground Zero.

"As rescue and recovery began, fireman, police, and rescue workers would be forced to endure the nightmare of working and living inside Ground Zero. Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into hopelessness as the reality of what had happened sunk in. While working in Building 6 in the World Trade Center complex, workers discovered a cavernous type hole in the debris."

As I listened to some of the people there, while I thought it was a beautiful story, I kept thinking of what was missing from the program.

It is easy to wonder where God was on that horrible day as other people decided such evil acts were justified when they used everything in their power to kill. Where was He? Why didn't He stop it? How could a loving God allow it to happen?

We ask those questions all the time. We suffer in our lives, then try to figure out why God thought we deserved it. What did we do to make Him turn away from us?

If we search for Him in the dirt and debris we are looking for Him in the wrong place.

God was on those planes that hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon as much as he was on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. He was not the pilot but He was the comforter. When one hand reached out to comfort someone else, He was right there. Whenever people push past thoughts for themselves to think of someone else, He is there.

Many wonder why He didn't just cause the hijackers to suffer a heart attack an spare so many innocent lives. Others wonder why He just didn't stop them from doing it. The truth is in the Bible that God does not interfere with freewill so He would not have just snatched the hijackers out of their seats. Still how do we know He didn't try to get them to change their hearts?

It is natural for us to ask what caused other humans to do such horrible things but we miss the other question about what causes so many to do compassionate things afterwards.

What caused the police and firefighters to rush into the buildings after pure evil struck them? What caused them to climb the stairs over and over again trying to save as many lives as possible after others tried to kill as many as possible?

While the evil that man does is apparent, the good they do is inherent. It was not just public employees risking their lives that day, there were average citizens in the Towers thinking of others instead of their own lives. Some of them could have survived had they used the time they had to think of their own lives, but they had the lives of others in their thoughts and actions. It was God driving them to do for others and they had the freewill choice to allow His voice to guide them or not.

But then there were smaller miracles. Survivors reached out to help others. Strangers took the hands of other strangers, put their arms around people they would have normally just walked past under normal circumstances. Then people rushed to the area to give whatever help they could.

Days passed while more and more people showed up to help find survivors and recover bodies. God was still there hearing the prayers of the nation and comforting the weary as they refused to leave.

Families of the missing were comforted by others while the time of hope faded into thinking of funerals for when the remains were found.

Every street across the country became decorated with flags and so did our cars. We were all thinking of others glued to our TV sets and reminded to be kinder to other people.

Even members of Congress joined together on the steps side by side. And we know it took a miracle to do that.

Whenever we look for God in what has been lost, we miss where He was all along.

To Lay Down His Life For The Sake of His Friends

There are some things that just need repeating. Between now and Christmas, I'm digging out some older posts. The dates have changed but the message has not. You can heal.

This is a repost from September 2007

Do you think God abandoned you still? Come on and admit that while you were in the center of the trauma, you either felt the hand of God on your shoulder, or more often, never felt further from Him. In natural disasters, we pray to God to protect us. Yet when it's over we wonder why He didn't make the hurricane hit someplace else or why the tornadoes came and destroyed what we had while leaving the neighbors house untouched. We wonder why He heals some people while the people we love suffer. It is human nature to wonder, search for answers and try to understand.
In times of combat, it is very hard to feel anything Godly. Humans are trying to kill other humans and the horrors of wars become an evil act. The absence of God becomes overwhelming. We wonder how a loving God who blessed us with Jesus, would allow the carnage of war. We wonder how He could possibly forgive us for being a part of it. For soldiers, this is often the hardest personal crisis they face.
They are raised to love God and to be told how much God loves them. For Christians, they are reminded of the gift of Jesus, yet in moments of crisis they forget most of what Jesus went through.
Here are a few lessons and you don't even have to go to church to hear them.


( Matthew 8:5-13)

As he entered Caper'na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered him, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

This sounds like a great act Jesus did. You think about the Roman Centurion, powerful, commanding, able to lead men into combat, perhaps Jesus even knew of the other men this Centurion has killed. Yet this same man, capable of killing, was also capable of great compassion for what some regarded as a piece of property, his slave. He showed he didn't trust the pagan gods the Romans prayed to but was willing to trust Jesus.
Yet when you look deeper into this act, it proves that Jesus has compassion for the warriors. The life and death of Jesus were not surprises to Him. He knew from the very beginning how it would end. This is apparent throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. He knew He would be betrayed, beaten, mocked, humiliated and nailed to the cross by the hands of Romans. Yet even knowing this would come, He had compassion for this Roman soldier. The Romans had tortured and killed the Jews since the beginning of their empire as well as other conquered people. The Roman soldiers believed in what they were doing, yet even with that, there was still documentation of them suffering for what they did.
Ancient historians documented the illness striking the Greeks, which is what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is evidence this illness hit every generation of warriors. Jesus would be aware that saving the Centurion's slave, because of the faith and trust He placed in Jesus, would be reported from soldier to soldier. Jesus showed compassion even to the Romans.
How can we think that He would not show compassion to today's soldiers? How can we think that He would look any differently on them than He did toward the soldiers who would nail Him to the Cross?
God didn't send you into combat. Another human did. God however created who you are inside. The ability to be willing to lay down your life for the sake of others was in you the day you were born. While God allows freewill, for good and for evil, He also has a place in His heart for all of His children. We humans however let go of His hand at the time we need to hold onto it the most.
When tragedy and trauma strike, we wonder where God was that He allowed it to happen. Then we blame ourselves. We do the "if" and " but" over and over again in our own minds thinking it was our fault and the trauma was a judgment from God. Yet we do not consider that God could very well be the reason we survived it all.
PTSD is a double edge cut to the person. The trauma strikes the emotions and the sense that God has abandoned us strikes at the soul. There is no greater sense of loss than to feel as if God has left you alone especially after surviving trauma and war. If you read the passage of Jesus and the Roman, you know that this would be impossible for God to do to you. Search your soul and you will find Him still there.
For the last story on this we have none other than the Arch Angel Michael. The warrior angel. If God did not value the warrior for the sake of good, then why would He create a warrior angel and make him as mighty as he was?Michael has a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. God places things in balance for the warriors.

And in John 15:

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

When it comes to waging war, issuing orders, God will judge the hearts and minds of those who sent you and He will also know yours. If you feel you need to be forgiven, then ask for it and you will be forgiven. Yet if you know in your heart the basis of your service was that of the willingness to lay down your life for your friends, then ask to be healed. Know this. That if Jesus had the compassion for a Roman how could He have any less compassion for you?Because the military is in enough trouble already trying to evangelize soldiers for a certain branch of Christianity, understand this is not part of that. It's one of the benefits of having I don't care what faith you have or which place of worship you attended. If you were a religious person at any level before combat, your soul is in need of healing as well. There is a tremendous gift when the psychological healing is combined with the spiritual healing. If you have a religious leader you can talk to, please seek them out.


Kathie Costos

Hacksaw Ridge Hero Desmond Doss Saved 75 Soldiers--Without A Gun

The Real 'Hacksaw Ridge' Soldier Saved 75 Souls Without Ever Carrying A Gun
WVPE
By ELIZABETH BLAIR
NOV 4, 2016

Doss saved 75 men — including his captain, Jack Glover — over a 12-hour period. The same soldiers who had shamed him now praised him. "He was one of the bravest persons alive," Glover says in the documentary. "And then to have him end up saving my life was the irony of the whole thing."

Desmond Doss is credited with saving 75 soldiers during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the Pacific — and he did it without ever carrying a weapon. The battle at Hacksaw Ridge, on the island of Okinawa, was a close combat fight with heavy weaponry. Thousands of American and Japanese soldiers were killed, and the fact that Doss survived the battle and saved so many lives has confounded and awed those who know his story. Now, he's the subject of a new film directed by Mel Gibson called Hacksaw Ridge.

A quiet, skinny kid from Lynchburg, Va., Doss was a Seventh-day Adventist who wouldn't touch a weapon or work on the Sabbath. He enlisted in the Army as a combat medic because he believed in the cause, but had vowed not to kill. The Army wanted nothing to do with him. "He just didn't fit into the Army's model of what a good soldier would be," says Terry Benedict, who made a documentary about Doss called The Conscientious Objector.

The Army made Doss' life hell during training. "It started out as harassment and then it became abusive," Benedict says. He interviewed several World War II veterans who were in Doss' battalion. They considered him a pest, questioned his sincerity and threw shoes at him while he prayed. "They just saw him as a slacker," the filmmaker says, "someone who shouldn't have been allowed in the Army, and somebody who was their weakest link in the chain."
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US Troops in Afghanistan Help Sisters of Charity

US troops, civilians volunteer to help Afghan needy
STARS AND STRIPES
By PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN Published: November 5, 2016

About a dozen volunteers help with the sorting and packing of the nuns’ car. The volunteers tend to rotate from week to week, but Army Capt. Rachel Campion, 27, with the 82nd Airborne Division, participates regularly.

National Guard Capt. Carl Crawford holds a device used to make fuel bricks out of paper waste, Oct. 21, 2016. On the table are circular bricks formed with ordinary food containers. Every Friday, civilian and military volunteers at Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, donate their time to make the bricks for an orphanage in the Afghan capital.
Andrew Yurkovsky/Stars and Stripes

KABUL, Afghanistan — Twice a month, Jerry Farkas, a retired Air Force flight chief from Utah, greets two Catholic nuns who come to the NATO headquarters here to collect donations for orphans at their Sisters of Charity home and needy families the nuns help support.

The nuns’ visits coincide with a weekly meeting of volunteers, primarily American troops, who organize the donation drive — one of several initiatives the volunteers are engaged in to help underprivileged families and orphans in the Afghan capital.

“Many people want to try to help,” said Farkas, 54, who works for Combined Security Transition Command — Afghanistan’s contracting enabler cell. “They’re here in Afghanistan and they’re trying to figure out: what can I do?”

Appeals for donations have resulted in a steady stream of clothes, school supplies and other items arriving at the NATO base from companies and citizens in the United States. People living on the Resolute Support base also make some donations.

Volunteers sort through the donated items in a shipping container used as a storage unit, preparing them for collection.
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Gulf War Veteran Woke Up From Coma After Final Prayer

Veteran awakens from coma during final prayer; family now faces mountain of red tape to bring him home
WHNT News
BY DAVID KUMBROCH
OCTOBER 17, 2016

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A Gulf War veteran’s family had to make a difficult choice recently, and only a miracle could change their tragic course.

Gulf War veteran Frank Bedwell was in a coma. With the pressure of a brain bleed pressing against them, his family came to a conclusion.

“My kids and myself, we all knew what he would want for himself. We knew that he didn’t want to live on machines for the rest of his life,” said Amy Bedwell, Frank’s wife.

They decided to turn off the machines at six o’clock.

“Fifteen minutes before it was time to pull the plug, I sent everybody out except for my kids,” Amy recalled.

“We called my dad. We prayed for him. And he woke up.”
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Military Chaplain Shaken by War

Over the years as a Chaplain trained to work with responders instead of those they help, I can tell you that it is a struggle for many of us to reach the point where we ask for help when we need it.

You would think that would be so easy since we know so many others doing the work we do. We usually have an Army behind us to turn to when it gets to be too much yet those I turn to know I am either burnt out or in crisis myself if I call them. It took a long time for me to be able to do that. After all, I am the caretaker of others.

What example would I portray to them if they saw me falling apart? That is what it took years to understand. It tells them I am just as human as they are. Since there is nothing wrong with them needing help from me, there is nothing wrong with me needing help from others.

I am unbroken now after being shattered many times. The thing is, there is no limit to the amount of healing or the number of times it is required. I have built up scars and each one reminds me of how hard it has been before but I got through it because I had help to recover from all of it.

My scars are not from combat but fighting the good fight for those who did what few others have dared to do.

Here is a great article on what Military Chaplains can go through.

What happens when the military chaplain is shaken by war
The Washington Post
Michelle Boorstein
May 29, 2016

“The chaplain is supposed to be the one that is unbroken,” Pantlitz said. “When soldiers see a chaplain is broken, they feel it’s okay for them to be broken, too. Other soldiers — okay. But a man or woman of God is not supposed to be broken.”

The pre-war Pastor Matthew Williams had gone to seminary, was ordained and thought he understood why people suffer. “God allows suffering because this world is temporary,” is how he would have put it.

Then came two deployments as an Army chaplain, one to Afghanistan and one to Iraq. Williams spent a year in an Afghanistan morgue unzipping body bags and “seeing your friends’ faces all blown apart.” He watched as most of the marriages he officiated for fellow soldiers fell apart. He felt the terror of being the only soldier who wasn’t armed when the mortars dropped and bullets flew.

This Memorial Day weekend, Williams is no longer an active-duty military chaplain nor a United Church of Christ minister. He is a guitar player on disability whose outlook on God, religion and suffering was transformed by post-traumatic stress.

The 5,000 active-duty men and women often called “Chaps” are the ones soldiers seek at all hours, under strict confidentiality, to share their darkest acts, doubts and fears — even the suicidal thoughts that could end their military careers. And yet chaplains experience post-traumatic stress, too, while carrying out their unique mission to shore up others.
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Veteran Marine, MMA Champion Saved By Christ

Former MMA Champion Shares How Christ Saved Him From PTSD, Suicide, Infidelity
Christian Post
BY ANUGRAH KUMAR
CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR
May 25, 2016

In a new "I Am Second" video, a former U.S. Marine and Pro MMA champion Chad Robichaux speaks honestly about his struggle with anger, hatred, brokenness, adultery and being suicidal as a result of a post-traumatic stress disorder, and how his wife's prayers in church led him to Christ and founding Mighty Oaks Warrior Program.

The video begins with Robichaux narrating an incident when he was working as a New Orleans police officer. After a domestic violence call, he had to deal with a gun-wielding offender, who was reported to be homicidal and suicidal. Robichaux and his associate ended up shooting him to death. Though cleared by a grand jury later, he struggled with his conscience.

"I had just blood everywhere on me and felt like I couldn't get it off me. I just wanted someone to tell me, you know, that it was okay, because I had just killed this guy in front of his family," he recalls. "And it was something I never thought I would have a hard time with, but it did."

Robichaux began his military career as a Force Recon Marine before spending time as a police officer in New Orleans, where he earned a medal of valor. After the 9/11 terror attacks, he was selected to join a Joint Special Operations Command task force where he was deployed to Afghanistan in the global war on terror.
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Camp Pendleton's Rancho Santa Margarita Chapel St. John Stained Glass Window Restored

Stained glass window restored at 200-year-old chapel
San Diego Union Tribune
By Linda McIntosh
May 6, 2016

The chapel is part of the Santa Margarita Ranch House National Historic Site, also a California State Historical Landmark. The building is believed to have been used as a winery in the early 1800s, serving Mission San Luis Rey A 75-year-old stained glass window was restored at Camp Pendleton’s 2-century-old Ranch House Chapel, one of the oldest buildings on base and a national landmark.

St. John stained glass window at Camp Pendleton's Rancho Santa Margarita Chapel

The restoration effort was spearheaded by the Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores Docent group as the base approaches its 75th anniversary next year.

The 3-by-4-foot stained glass depicting St Joan of Arc, was originally installed in the chapel’s sacristy in the 1940s during the term of the base’s first commanding general, Maj. Gen. Joseph Fegan, said Faye Jonason, the base’s museum branch officer who coordinated the project with the docent group.

The historic piece was created in the style of Old World glass found in European cathedrals and was originally donated by the Flood family. It is one of eight such stained glass windows in the chapel, donated in memory of pioneer families, including the Forsters, O’Neills and Baumgartners,who lived in the nearby ranch house until it was acquired by the Marine Corps base in 1942.
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Easter The Day God Proved The People Wrong

Why Ask God Why?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 27, 2016


For the majority of the Christian World, today is all about remembering when God actually proved them wrong.

Jesus's Tomb

The night before this day, they went to sleep with a lot of questions. They wondered how the Man they thought was the Son of God ended up suffering such a horrible death. They would have run what Jesus said a thousand times in their mind trying to make sense out of what they thought was the end of the story. How could they have believed Him? Why did God let it happen?

They had no way of knowing what would happen on the day the tomb would be found empty even though Jesus told them it would happen that way. As if that was not a strong enough piece of information to give, there was also the fact that it happened when everyone thought that Lazarus was gone forever too. It was even foretold hundreds years before it happened to Jesus, but they still did not believe the end was not really the end, but the beginning of an awakening.

Isaiah 53 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

It is easy to think they were happily shocked by the empty tomb. No one knows if any of them asked "why not" when they received word that Jesus lived again.

When something bad happens human nature takes over and we always want to know why it happened. Did we do something wrong? Did we deserve it? Could we have prevented it? Did God do it to us to punish us? How about, why did God spare us from it being a lot worse?

I am Greek Orthodox and we are known as Easter people because we celebrate the new beginning and rejoice over the fact that Jesus was willing to die for us but defeated death along with all our sins He carried on His shoulders. We will celebrate Pascha on May 1 this year.

Let this day be a new beginning for you.  A day when the person you were yesterday is let go of and take on a new life, free of sins and torment.  Free from asking "why" and you begin to ask "why not" for the future.

When you see a homeless person, remember Jesus was homeless too and depended on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter.

Do not look for miracles that did not happen for you, like hitting the lottery last night when someone else did, but look for the miracles that happen every day in great as well as small ways in your own life.

If you are grieving, then grieve knowing what is behind it.  Is it for the loss you suffered or is it because you believe you deserved it?  God does not send bad stuff into our lives but He does give us what we need to get through it.  Stop and think rationally about what you could have done differently and then actually think about if it would have really been possible to do it with what you knew at the time and within what your human abilities would have allowed you to do.

Veterans have a habit of thinking they could have done things that even a comic book super hero could not have done. Stopped a bullet? Jump in front of a buddy before the RPG was fired? Drive over a bomb before it went off? Spot a sniper before he pulled the trigger? Tell a buddy to duck?

So many things you may want to believe could have happened when it actually could not have been possible for you because no matter how much you love, no matter how courageous you were, you are in fact still just human like the rest of us.  Yet as a human, even you can defeat the death of all the good inside of you.

Remember that you were willing to die for the sake of someone else and that required the purest form of love.  Even in your grief, a part of you is still willing to sacrifice for those you lost.  That is from love.  Use that love to defeat what is haunting you and keeping you from rejoicing when you defeated death and survived combat.

Don't keep wondering "why" it happened and start asking what you can do with the rest of your life for others. Time to roll the stone away and defeat PTSD.  It does not have to win the rest of your life.  Yesterday cannot be changed, but today can start to change at this very second.

Christian Chaplain Dared to Talk about Jesus?

Watchdog Group Wants Air Force to Pull 'Jesus' Video
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Feb 27, 2016

Other videos on the recruiting site highlight chaplains of various faiths talking about their work as well, including Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. But none of these discuss witnessing their faith to service members or converting anyone to the religion.

(US Air Force photo/Deana Heitzman)

The head of a watchdog group says the major general who heads up the Air Force Recruiting Service has reneged on a promise to quickly remove a video in which a Protestant chaplain touts his role as a minister who brought someone to Christ during a deployment to Iraq.

In the 2-1/2 minute video, Chaplain and Air Force Capt. Christian Williams talks about the chaplaincy being "one of the most rewarding ministries in the world," serving a pluralistic environment of airmen, soldiers, sailors and Marines of different backgrounds and cultures.

Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said the video is perfectly fine until it hits the two-minute mark, when Williams departs from talking about serving and counseling troops to celebrating successfully bringing a female airman to Jesus.

"Before I left Iraq," Williams says in the video, "she told me that 'as a result of the example I saw you set ... I have accepted Christ as my personal lord and savior.' You can't put a price tag on that."
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My head just exploded!

Well then, I guess Chaplains need to stop being Chaplains! Seriously? I am a Chaplain but not a military one even though I work with veterans and am certified, plus serve with Point Man International Ministries, but I am also someone who experienced a hell of a lot of life threatening events. I can testify what my faith has brought me through and how what I gained is shared with others so they can find their way out of darkness too.

I call it "Air Support" and it works but my "job" is to get them to start healing and that is the priority. If the veteran is a Christian already, great, then I can address him/her as a Christian would.

Now when we use the word "Christian" we need to face one simple fact, there are many different types of "Christians" with their own rules and beliefs. The basic "title" does not hold the same meaning.

I happen to be Greek Orthodox. Not an easy thing to be especially since I am female and they do not allow females to practice sacraments. The other day I had to turn down a police officer after he asked me to bless his Saint Michael medal. I told him I could pray for him but that was just about it. (Role of Women) My "job" is not to get them to join the Greek Orthodox Church or any other church, but it is to help them heal.

I work with veterans and families from all different faiths letting them know I am speaking as a Christian but I do not get into preaching at them as much as I do getting what God put into them all connected back again so they can use what they were given to heal. Believe me, it makes sense with a lot more time to explain it.

The thing is, as you read in the article there are many different types of Chaplains from different faiths. Just because this Chaplain is talking about Jesus doesn't not mean he was trying to get the Airman to join his church, so in my opinion, there should be no problem with this at all.

Papa Ward, Pastor to Homeless Veterans Died on Christmas Day

The man who gave hope dies on the greatest day of hope
Daily Commercial
Tom McNiff
December 30, 2015

Papa Ward, the pastor of Logos Christian Fellowship church in Leesburg, died Christmas day. Those who knew him best say it was fitting that Ward, who brought hope to so many, died on Christ's birthday -- celebrated in the Christian faith as a day of hope.

Papa Chris Ward
Gary Kadow, Pastor Chris Ward, and Deb and Bob Peters pose for a photo on the day after Thanksgiving, a day spent worming with homeless people in the Ocala National Forest.

Long before there was a Project SOS, a veterans aid organization that, in part, helps homeless veterans living in the Ocala National Forest, there was Chris Ward.

The one-time Army Airborne Ranger, who became a minister after leaving the service, had been tromping across the pine needles and through the thickets of the forest looking for campgrounds where homeless veterans retreated to wrestle in solitude with the demons they brought back from the battlefield.

He brought them food, fresh water, clothing, blankets -- anything to soften their rugged day-to-day existence. But most of all, he brought something most people couldn't. He brought understanding, the kind of understanding that only another combat veteran could offer.
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