In the May 16, 1861, issue of the Religious Herald an article appeared noting that the New York Bible Society had distributed 14,000 Bibles to soldiers and sailors volunteering for service in the North. Alfred E. Dickenson, who later became editor of the Herald, was then serving as the general superintendent of the Sunday School and Bible Board in Virginia. He called for readers to respond to the mission opportunity represented by the 150,000 troops expected to arrive in the Commonwealth by supplying them with the “God’s precious truth.” During one year, Virginians gave $180,000 for Bibles.
Jim White
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Fast forwarding 150 years, I wish to follow the example of my worthy predecessor by calling for volunteers to engage in missions to our military. For more than a decade now we have been at war against elusive terrorists. This week brought the welcome news that no further threats will originate with Osama bin Laden; but with others continuing the unholy work of Al Qaeda, the war continues.
Taking Virginia and North Carolina together, no region of the world has so many military families as the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. With nearly 80,000, Virginia leads the nation in the number of students with military ties. Almost every community in the region has a family member in the military. For more than 10 years military families have been dealing with the challenges of separation, and the sometimes even greater challenges of a soldier’s return.
Churches have been eager to welcome military families into their membership, but aside from that, most have done little in the way of intentional ministry to these service personnel or their families. The needs, however, cannot be ignored.
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Although the armed services have organizations to assist families during the absence of husband/father or, these days, wife/mother, they cannot possibly meet all the needs of military families. Churches must answer the call of missions to our military.
Some are setting a good example. One church notified military families that the church facilities are open to them, free of charge, for any events they wish to host. Another provided lawn mowing services for military families whose husbands were deployed. Still another provides free child-care one day a week for military moms. An even greater service churches are providing is friendship and emotional support. Retired military families in churches can readily identify with the needs and sacrifices of military life.
In addition to caring for families during deployment, churches need to brace themselves for the needs of returning veterans. According to the National Institute of Health estimates, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects as many as 20 percent of returning veterans. At a time when we assume family life will return to normal, many families discover that their hardest times lie ahead.
In response, some churches near military bases have begun groups for veterans to come and talk with other vets. Men’s groups have responded by scheduling social events to help returning vets ease back into civilian life.
Some returning vets survived the worst the enemy could hurl at them only to take their own lives when they returned. Some return with limbs missing and scars obvious to all. But an even greater tragedy is that others return with emotional scars invisible to the naked eye. These wounds, debilitating though they are, receive no balm. Any way you look at it, ministry is needed. Will soldiers of the cross be willing to make sacrifices equal to those made by our nation’s warriors?
By the time you read these lines, the war on terror will have cost one trillion, two hundred billion dollars ($1,200,000,000,000). This money has been borrowed from the American people, borrowed from other nations and siphoned from other national needs. At this point there is no way to even estimate the damage we are doing to our citizens, both military and civilian.
The real cost of the war will be determined not in dollars and cents, however, but in pain created. And Christ will be in the middle of the pain reaching to the hurting through the hands of Baptist laity.
One more thing churches can do: pray that security will return on a global scale; for only that will justify the price we are paying now and for generations to come.