Christmas deployed

Hello and Happy Christmas! Its been a very busy run up to Christmas and I don't expect things to slow down until after it has finished!

I am writing this post a day earlier than usual as I am off on my Christmas holiday to be with my Girlfriend tomorrow. 

I thought I would share a little Christmas story with you. In my 14 years in the Navy I have been away from home for Christmas twice. Last year I spent Christmas at sea bobbing about in the Indian Ocean.

The other Christmas I spent deployed was a totally different story. I got loaned to the Army for a year and went out to Iraq doing an operational tour for seven and a half months. Part of this tour was over Christmas.

I worked for the Royal Artillery and my job was to operate a massive gun which was used to shoot down rockets and mortars which were fired into our camp. 

I used to work a shift pattern of 12 hours on and 12 hours off the gun. Christmas Day found me on a night shift and I finished my shift at 8am, went back to my tent, crawled into my sleeping bag and went to sleep. 

About an hour later I got a shake "Steve, get up, you need to come and get your christmas present." I cannot repeat my reply on this blog! But long story short I ended up getting up after only a tiny bit of sleep.

So I fell into squad with the rest of the battery outside our tents as we paraded. Our Commanding Officer came out and gave us a 25 minute speech and then we had to line up in rank order to collect our Christmas box. Being a sailor in an Army regiment I was right at the back. So after queuing for ages I finally got my Christmas box and I returned to my tent and got straight back into my bed. (I say bed, but for the whole tour my bed actually consisted of a few wooden pallets under a sheet of steel for protection.)

I quickly drifted off to sleep, but then was woken up less than 30 minutes later. "Steve. get up, you need to go  get your Christmas Dinner." Again I cant tell you my reply! Needless to say, no matter how much I said I just wanted sleep and didn't want to go to dinner, I found myself fell back in with the battery for the second time in the day.

We were marched down to a massive car park where we had a church service. I was not a Christian back then, and I certainly did not appreciate being made to stand in the mid day heat for an hour having a church service  when I should have been asleep!

With that over we were marched to the dining tent where we all had to line up for our Christmas dinner. Only now it was just not my battery waiting it was half the camp! 

Finally I got my Christmas dinner  and took it to a table and sat down with my mates, I was just tucking into my first spud when we heard the unmistakable Crump! Crump! Crump! Noise that mortars make when they explode close by.

So we all dived onto the floor, which is what you do when there are mortars landing close by. Food  went every where! Great there goes my Christmas dinner! 

We all lay there on the floor with mortars going off every few minutes at various distances away from us for about an hour. By the time the all clear was sounded my dinner was ruined and so went straight into the bin.

I walked back to my tent totally fed up. Not only had I spent an hour laid on the floor with someone trying to drop an explosive shell on my head, I had been made to spend my time off the gun awake rather than being asleep. I get very grumpy when I am tired and I really was not very happy.

I got back to my tent but could not  get to sleep, I shared the tent with 40 other people, and no matter how tired I was everyone else was making the most of Christmas and being noisy. 

So now after only having had a tiny bit of sleep in 24 hours, I walked back up to my gun for another 12 hour shift.

When I was up at the gun I climbed up onto the 8ft sandbag wall which protected it to sit and watch the sun go down. It had been a bad day and the worst, most depressing Christmas I had ever had! I was not very happy at all.

As I was sat there watching the sun going down, turning the sky an amazing red colour I could picture Mary and Joseph slowly making their way to Bethlehem. I know Iraq is not the same as Israel, but it was close enough. I could picture it in my head. I could see the wise men on route to see the baby Jesus. I could see the shepherds sat on the hill overlooking Bethlehem and I could almost imagine the sound of the angels singing.

I sat there for ages just soaking up being in that landscape and reliving in my mind the Christmas story I had learned as a child. As I have said before I was not a Christian then. But that experience changed my life and has brought me closer to the Christmas story every year since. 

I felt a lot better after that, and that short period of time turned what had been the worst Christmas Day ever into one of the best ones ever. 

So this Christmas Day try to take the time, even if just ten minutes to forget about what society tells us Christmas is all about. Spend just a few minutes thinking about the real meaning of Christmas and the real Christmas story, the fact that over 2000 years ago a child was born who would change the entire world. A baby who people traveled vast distances to see. 

Why not have a think, how far today are you willing to go for Jesus?

 

Future Army

Hello everyone, this is probably one of the strangest places I have written a blog post, sat in my car at work in the pouring rain waiting to go into the dentist! 

This week there has been lots and lots of talk on Facebook about uniforms and what the real Salvation Army is and what real Soldiers are like. I have also been reading "Founding Vision For A Future Army" By Alan Burns.

I really do think the Army needs to change, these changes do not mean that the people making them or Corps where change is taking place are any less "Army" than those Soldiers or Corps which remain more traditional. If anything I would say that in those areas Salvationists and Corps are being more in line with what early Salvationist did, they were not afraid to adapt and change and do what ever was necessary to save souls.

In the First World War Generals thought they could fight a war in the same way as they did 50 years earlier, with cavalry charges and set infantry attacks. But with the advances in technology they found out these tactics no longer worked and the Western Front  ended up in the blood bath where so many people died. 

I feel this is the position the Salvation Army is in today. We need to adapt and change our tactics to suit these modern times, whilst still trying to maintain the original aim and spirit of the Army. We seem in so many ways to be stuck behind the times. In areas where that works then that is fine; but in areas where these tactics  no longer work we need to change, or quite simply the Army will continue its decline until we die.

I must also add that as far as I am concerned, although I do like our uniform and I enjoy playing in the band I feel these two things do not make the Army. They are both weapons to be used in spiritual warfare. But like all weapons they need to be deployed where they are suited best and where they  are effective. For example In many areas where a traditional open air style meeting would not be effective why can't we try a more busking style of ministry? 

I hope people understand what I mean by that, I am not saying scrap bands and uniform, what I am saying is that they are not the only options to ministry and we need to adapt and use all the weapons available in our armoury for warfare; be that Bands, guitars, uniforms or army branded clothing. 

I really do feel we need to come together as one as an Army and try to understand this. There is so much talk of if people or Corps are traditional or not and this almost always usually judged upon their rules on uniform and style of worship. I really do feel this is wrong.  

The tradition of the Salvation Army is the will and passion of its Soldiers to go out and save souls by any means necessary. Thats what a traditional corps looks like, it should be a place  where outward things are not as important as the Corps mission of saving souls. This will differer from Corps to Corps and each one will look  vastly different. However this does not mean any of them will be any less "Army" than the next. Provided their aim fits the founders aim. To go out and spread the Gospel and save souls.

The Sailing Salvationist 

Is your life hectic?

Hello everyone, I am really sorry I did not write a post last week, as you know I was on holiday. I planned to write a post on the train on the way home, however it seems the train company had other ideas. I ended up standing half way across the country even though I had a seat booked. By the the time I finally managed to get my seat I was shatterd.

Then for the rest of this week I kept on planning to write a post, but things just kept on coming up. I also guess that is the whole point of this post really. Its all about life being hectic.

People who reguarly read this blog will probably have noticed that the tone of these posts have changed a lot between when I was on the ship and now I am at home. When I was on the ship my posts were often more Biblical and theological. Where as since I have been back my posts have been more social work based. 

There is a reason for this, when I am on the ship I have lots of time to sit around and think and read and just be a more thinking person really. But when I am at home it is totally different. Most of the time I do not know if I am coming or going. I always seem to be rushing here or there doing this and that. 

Dont get me wrong when I am at home a lot of my time is spent doing Army work,in fact I spend more time doing Army work than Navy work (Dont tell my boss!). But this can mean The partys of my life which are so important to me when I am at sea such as prayer and Bible study can get left behind.

Thats reaslly not good. Life can be hectic and we can spend our time running and rushing everywhere, often doing work for the Church, but if that means we forget why we are doing it then it can be harmful to our spiritual lives.

This week I am going to really try to take a little bit of time each day to try and get as disiplined as I was about reading my Bible when I was at sea. If you have let things go a bit slack recently and you know you have not been spending as much time as you probably should have reading the Bible then why not join me.

The Sailing Salvationist.

P.S. My fitness training has gone out the window as well, but I can wait until the new year to get back on track with that!