News From Iraq

This brother shares lessons from his tour of duty in Iraq – including faith building sites of ancient Biblical accounts.

My name is Daniel, a brother in the Minneapolis\St. Paul Church of Christ and a member of the Minnesota National Guard. Though this story is late in coming, I wanted to write about some of the challenges and blessings that one experiences in Iraq.

I recently returned from Iraq in July of 2007. My group was deployed for 23 months with 15 to 16 months of that being in Iraq. Our group at the time had been the longest to stay in Iraq at any given time. Out of the 23 months, I was only home for about 1 month. You can hear about horrid things in the media about Iraq, but God is God and he will direct you where he wants you to go. Despite the challenges that I faced in Iraq, I’m glad that I was able to serve there because I experienced many blessings too – those I will cover more later in this letter. Iraq is a place plenty of biblical references like

Abraham’s birth place (picture to right), the Tower of Babel, and King Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. Hardly anybody from the outside world even gets a chance to visit Iraq, but that might change over the course of time. Most people can visit places in Israel, but Iraq has been kind of the forbidden fruit during the last 40 to 50 years unless you have been to Iraq for a special work reason.

When I got the news that I was being deployed to Iraq in 2005, I was excited. I became even more excited when I realized that I would going to a place that was about 45 minutes from the Tower of Babel and King Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace. You see the book of Daniel is one of my favorite books in the bible and it was a huge blessing to be able to live there, but this didn’t come out without challenges.

I started off going to church and having regular times with God, but that soon changed over the course of the year. I had some challenges with sin and I experienced inconsistent times with God and attendance at church. The stress of being there was just getting to me.

Well, this didn’t last for long until I had a wake up call on February 22, 2007 when our military base experienced a mortar and rocket attack. How I didn’t get killed or wounded is something that I will have to ask God about later. I immediately turned around and ran for cover with another co-worker. He wanted to go another way, but I shoved him another way for our own safety. When I got back inside my office with my heart racing a mile a minute because I was in shock and still trying to process what happened, I found out one of my dear friends had just been killed in IED attack outside our base.

After this attack, I said enough was enough. I decided to start reading the book of Daniel using my Bible and an exhaustive commentary that resulted in me living like him. I went on a 3 week fast that consisted of fruits, vegetables, milk products, and other fluids that really helped turned things around. I felt like an 180 degree turn around spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Additionally over the course of the next 5 months, I started attending church consistently, praying on my prayer rug about everyday honestly on my hands and knees, started studying the bible with people, and even connected with a couple other people from different churches that were serving in the military. I was very grateful to run into Juan and Raven for the uplifting fellowship.

During my time in Iraq, I learned many lessons: that God is definitely there for you when you are alone and in the process of making new friends, how much God loves me, God doesn’t give up on you during hard times, the value of honesty and openness before God and people, and you don’t realize that God is all you need until he is all you have.

Besides the above mentioned material, there are many other inspiring things that I would like to share about. For instance, I mentioned that I lived about 45 minutes away from King Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace and the

Tower of Babel. I did never get to visit these places. I probably would have if not for having to move to another base in Iraq. Instead, I got a chance to visit Abraham’s birthplace and have an Easter Sunrise service there. Abraham’s birthplace sat inside of our military base. What an amazing place. From the hieroglyphics on the rocks to ancient tombs that were excavated to Abraham’s original house. I was in shock and awe when I visited this place. What is even more funny is that a Muslim was giving us a tour of the place using a bible to point out some of the information. (picture left) And somebody found a sea shell during the tour to prove that the place had been flooded before.

I even participated in working on some burn victims. We had a medical clinic outside of our military base that was known as the best burn clinic in all of Iraq. Normally, burn victims need to stay in a hospital, but supplies and personnel are of short supply in Iraq. Thus, we would clean them up with and re-wrap their wounds. On one such occasion, I had a chance to work on two burn victims. Both were from suicide bombings. One person was an Iraqi Police officer, who was really grateful for the treatment, and the other person was a young male, who seemed like a suicide bomber himself. I had to deal with putting many insurgents in jail in Iraq, so I had grown accustomed to getting a sense of who might be a bad guy. Wouldn’t you know it, I had the opportunity to clean up both of these victims. Loving your enemy took on a new meaning, but I cleaned up with the reminder of loving them like Jesus.

On another occasion, I had a chance to guard a dead person’s body like one of the soldiers that guarded the body of Jesus. It’s normal operating procedure for us to place guards on anybody killed in action. I volunteered to do this duty for one particular soldier that was killed in action and was brought to our base. I immediately couldn’t help but think about what it must have been like for one of the soldiers guarding the body of Jesus. I wondered if the ground was going to split in two, but it didn’t. I instead started praying for the friends and family of this deceased soldier. I prayed for a few minutes, but I would soon have to be involved in moving the deceased soldier from a metal container onto a stretcher. It was an eerie feeling having to open a metal container and transport the deceased soldier from one container onto a stretcher. I was worried it was going to smell or I was going to see something that I wasn’t used too, but everything turned out all right for my fellow soldiers and I were going to do our jobs and treat our fallen comrade with the utmost respect and honor.

Well, it finally came time for us to transport our fallen comrade to the helicopter that was waiting in the dark. You see our helicopters fly at night with no lights on. We normally wear equipment that allows us to see in the dark, but on this very night we had to rely on somebody from the helicopter crew to guide us to the helicopter. He was like our angel because if you don’t enter the helicopter just right you could get hit by the big blades that turn on top of the helicopter, resulting in death or injury. He guided us safely to the helicopter to load this deceased soldier onto the helicopter.

Ever since this incident, I wanted to get in touch with the family because not every family gets a chance to hear how honorably and respectfully their loved ones are treated as they go home from Iraq back to the US. About one month ago, I contacted members of the family to see if they wanted to hear this part of the story for their own special memories and for closure. It turns out that I had a chance to speak directly to the father on the phone and he was very grateful to hear this story. I should be seeing this family over Memorial Day weekend this year because he wanted to get a chance to meet me. There might be more to share about this story later.

The last story that I will share about is about an interpreter that I worked with in Iraq. He worked with US forces for 3 years helping to improve the lives of his fellow Iraqi people, but this didn’t come with out sacrifices. Family members were killed, he was jailed, had property confiscated, and had near misses to his own life from deadly attacks. This guy literally reminds of Paul in the Bible. He went from having people killed to helping save people’s lives. He is now currently living in the United States. This is a guy whose dad is Muslim, but his mom is Christian. He stopped going to church when he was little and doesn’t know if he can believe in a God anymore because of the all killing he has seen. Wouldn’t you know it though that he went to church for the first time in his life since he was little. He didn’t know what to think of church or why he is in the US, but I flat out asked him if he thought God brought him here to become a disciple. He didn’t think so, but I’m going to keep praying for him.

In ending, this is a land that needs a Savior to provide these people with faith, hope, and love. Shame, low self-esteem, fear, lack of trust, anger, greed, etc. are wide spread. I’ve worked with some Iraqis that want the best for Iraq, but Satan is making it difficult. I continue to pray that Iraqis and Coalition Forces will draw close to God and spread the Good news. It’s clearly obvious to me my sinful condition, but how much God does love us.

Your grateful brother in Christ,

Daniel

Posted by Jerry Maday