Today, I am enjoying the day of rest mostly from Army work. I woke up early this morning to drink some java, read Scripture, watch the Sunday morning news and finished reading Christianity Today magazine before church. At lunch, I went to a local restaurant called Jade Chinese enjoying a nice meal. As always, I broke open the fortune cookie and read a generic fortune which says, “Your hard work is about to pay off. Congratulations!”
Normally, I don’t give a second glance or thought about fortune cookies but this one made me reflect on my Chaplaincy work for the past few years. Perhaps, the reason of this reflection is that I recently have been reassigned to a Military Intelligence unit for my next assignment. Normally, assignments last two to three years (which is probably why I get an “itch” at about the two-year mark. I just realized something. Since my nineteen birthday, I have not lived at one location for more than 2-years. Hmm…) Back to the story, as I was driving home, I began praising God for the last two years of God’s grace in the Chaplaincy work. And so, I thank God for the good fortunes of the following small cookies:
1) opened the Oasis coffeehouse lounge in Afghanistan which was a 40′ X 50′ building with espresso equipment, plasma tvs, phone/computer center, 2-sets of musical instruments, small and large sound system (large sound system for outside festivals), over 400-volumes of religious books for the Spiritual Fitness library, two 20′ containers full of supplies, and a wooden deck to top it off (For pictures),
2) started a Care for Soldiers ministry delivering over 800-packages in a 10-month time to over 30-locations to our teams in Afghanistan,
3) began the For the Afghan Children delivering over 300-packages of school supplies, children clothes and toys to an Afghan Girl’s school,
4) assisted my Denomination Bishop, a good friend of mine, in assisting public relations of Chaplaincy ministry through providing photos with short article of my Chaplaincy ministry to our national Denomination publication, speaking at our Denomination conferences and coordinating a visit of our General Bishop (and several other Bishops) to Ft. Hood,
5) provided various retreats/seminars of over 15-Strong Bonds retreats in 10-month period impacting over 400-Soldiers/Families, 6-ASIST workshops training over 80-leaders, and teaching Financial Peace University classes impacting numerous Soldiers/Families, and
6) helped develop a vision and planning on remodeling one of our Chapels renaming it the Soldiers Ministry Center where there will be a coffeehouse lounge/warehouse worship experience aimed at young adults living in the barracks.
And you know the funny thing about reading my fortune “cookies” is that I began my assignment with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion with a coffeehouse ministry and ending my assignment with influencing the Chaplain ministry of the coffeehouse vision at one of our Chapels. Ironic, isn’t it?
