Archive - June, 2008

Taking Jesus’ love to soldiers in battle, chaplain is shot

By 27 June 2008. Filed in Deployment.

0

William Wright
Banner Staff Writer
Thursday, Jun 26, 2008

Being shot by a sniper while ministering to U.S. troops in Iraq may not have been his idea of true mettle but Chaplain Capt. Barron Wester proved that he was more than a spiritual advisor to his soldiers. He was their family and friend.

The 34-year-old patriot was living the American Dream with his wife, Dawn, while being a school teacher in Atlanta, Ga., when he said he felt a strong call to enter the chaplaincy after the 9/11 attack.

“I started looking on the Internet and figured out I had to have a Master of Divinity,” he said. “At that point I stepped out in faith, resigned from my teaching job and we came to Cleveland to go to the Church of God seminary.”

After graduating in 2005, Wester put in his paper work to go on active duty as a full chaplain.

He was stationed in Kansas by the end of the year where a brand new unit, nicknamed Black Lions, was being formed.

READ MORE from the Cleveland Daily Banner

Chaplain Turner’s War

By 24 June 2008. Filed in Deployment.

0

In January, reporter Moni Basu and photographer Curtis Compton began documenting life at war with Darren Turner, chaplain for the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart.

They traveled with him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while he was home on leave, then caught up with him in Iraq, where they spent five weeks reporting this story.

They shadowed the chaplain as he counseled soldiers, baptized them and dealt with war’s hardships. They also went on foot patrol with a platoon that lost six men last summer.

Every soldier in this story gave the journalists permission to document their interactions with the chaplain. All except one of the scenes were witnessed firsthand. The one reconstructed scene — the events of last summer — appears in Chapter 3 and was pieced together through interviews with soldiers who were there.

READ MORE from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Free Bible commentary CD-ROM for chaplains

By 16 June 2008. Filed in Resources.

0

New free CD-ROM Computer Bible Commentary containing over 8,000 pages of verse-by-verse exegetical Old Testament and New Testament commentaries as well as OT & NT Surveys.

You can see a preliminary form at www.freebiblecommentary.org/intcdtest/ReadMe.htm

It also includes Bible commentaries in Bengali, French, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovakian & Urdu.

It should be ready to mail by the end of June. For your free CD-ROM just email me a mailing address.

Dr. Bob Utley

Professor of Hermeneutics (retired)
Marshall, Texas

www.freebiblecommentary.org

Sergeant lends ear to fellow Soldier, prevents suicide

By 16 June 2008. Filed in News & Commentary.

0

FORT HOOD, Texas— Soldiers are called upon to fight against the continuing war on terrorism, but one Soldier had to fight a different battle last week when he helped a fellow Soldier who was in need of assistance.

The quick thinking of Sgt. Richard Lamas, a native of Bovina, Texas and an operations noncommissioned officer for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, helped save the life of another Soldier who was intent on ending his own life.

Lamas was heading home at the end of the day June 4 when he noticed a Soldier loitering in the parking lot of the Ironhorse Brigade Chapel. Lamas asked the Soldier if he needed assistance when the Soldier stated ‘I don’t think I can go back to my room because I might hurt myself.’

Lamas talked to the Soldier while they went to the chapel and sought assistance for the soldier. Finding the chaplain gone, Lamas took the Soldier down to the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop’s company area and sought the number for the chaplain on call.

READ MORE at KWTX.com

Army Families – Army Strong

By 14 June 2008. Filed in News & Commentary.

0

Army’s top chaplain speaks at luncheon

By 14 June 2008. Filed in News & Commentary.

0

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)–Prayer keeps us on God’s agenda, Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver, the U.S. Army’s chief of chaplains, told fellow chaplains during a luncheon at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.

“Let’s make sure we’re on God’s agenda, because it’s much better than what you and I can come up with in our feeble abilities,” Carver said.

“Our soldiers carry a heavy, heavy load,” Carver added. “And we get to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ unencumbered while in uniform.”

Carver addressed the luncheon for chaplains hosted each year by the North American Mission Board. The board endorses chaplains on behalf of Southern Baptists.

Citing the importance of Southern Baptists in the work of military ministry, Carver emphasized the vitality a local church can give to military personnel at home and during deployment.

“Just about every good thing has happened to me happened in a Southern Baptist church,” Carver said. “North Broad Baptist Church in downtown Rome [Ga.] is where I was licensed, ordained, commissioned and sent.

READ MORE from Baptist Press