The safest church service ever...

Today is Sunday over here...which means that I had the opportunity to sleep in for a bit before going to church. I might add that it is so much easier to get myself up and to church on time than it is to get an entire family ready to go...but I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Sunday is our half-day so we all report in around 1:00 p.m., the morning is all ours to do as we please. After a long night of watching movies and talking to Loni on the phone I got up this morning around 9:00 a.m. and went to church. As you might imagine, the church here (Abundant Faith Chapel) is a non-denominational worship service...and I do mean worship service. It is very similar to the Wednesday night service back home with our youth group...lots of worship songs with a full band (all in uniform) followed by a message from the chaplain.

The chaplain is an Army Major, but the worship band is quite mixed. Department of Defense (DoD) electric guitar player, DoD backup singer, Air Force Staff Sergeant backup singer, Army First Lieutenant drummer, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel bass player, and an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel lead singer/guitar player. It is quite interesting seeing them all up there worshipping in uniform.

I assume the chapel likely holds 150-200 personnel and it was full from front to rear. Fear and danger definitely make people believe in God! The interesting part of the service and something that you'll never see back home is that most every person in there has either a pistol or a rifle. Only the civilians don't wear weapons...everyone else is armed. I chuckled when we arrived and mentioned to Daniel that "this is the safest church service I've ever been to."

After the morning service we ate some dinner, unfortunately for me it was not Buenavista, and then we experienced our first real good dust storm. We had to walk about a half mile still when the dust started kicking up so bad that we could only see about 5' in front of us. Once we arrived at the office we basically had to take a bath to get the grit off of us.

After getting settled in and starting to work on a contract I put on a little music like I do each day and the first song that came on was very appropriate. I'm not sure who wrote the song, but the version I have on my iPod is sung by Adrienne Leisching...you'll recognize it...

"In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest droughts and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are still, when strivings cease. My comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand."