Living Grace to the World

I’m in 29 Palms CA doing ministry here with Emile (and Rhonda and Gabriella) Moured. He’s a chaplain, alum, and friend serving the Marine base here. They head off for deployment in SE Asia January 4 so he’ll be away from family for 6 months. They’ll have Skype while he’s in Okinawa, but little contact while out on ship. Quite a challenge when you have a very cute 2 year old daughter. As you can imagine, I’m enjoying playing with her too!

The Marine culture is something I know nothing about, so it’s a good cultural experience for me. What I do appreciate is the commitment of the men and families I’ve met. They are totally committed to the LORD and serving him in their lives as Marines. I’m sure that’s not all that’s here in the chapel, but there are a lot of them. I got to explore an M1 Tank with a gung ho driver and then go to the weapons training area and learn about things from 9 millimeter pistols to 50 caliber machine guns. The computer simulation with air powered weapons was quite authentic!

I spent Friday talking with Denise, an old friend from Pasadena days. We went up the Palm Springs Tram to the snow zone. She brought an 11 year old from England. His dad is gone, his Mom didn’t want him, so he’s with his grandmother who has taken him in but isn’t really keen on this. The good thing is that she has him in a Catholic school. As we talked about Jesus, he said he’d prayed the sinner’s prayer. I asked if he meant it. He said he did. I asked what it meant for him to be connected to Jesus. He said He is the one who does not leave him. Quite a heart wrenching story.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 6:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.