There is a large military training center near Columbus called Camp Atterbury. One of the chaplains on the base goes to our church and for the past 4 years he has organized a night of caroling on the base. This year, people in the church baked over 6000 cookies to hand out while caroling. (Karen baked several dozen.)

It was a moving experience. Most of the soldiers there are preparing to go to Iraq. In fact, some have shipped out since we were there on Wednesday night. I have never seen a more appreciative group than the 10 or so groups of soldiers we sang to. Many were crying and were sure to tell us thank you and that it meant a lot to them.

We carried several large boxes of cookies around to different barracks, the soldiers would come out, we would sing and the kids would hand out cookies to them. Elijah, our youngest (almost 3,) was a huge hit with the soldiers.

He would grab as many bags of cookies he could carry and go running up to the line of soldiers yelling, “here soldier!” They were eating it up. Several of them were sure to come find him to thank him after we were done singing. There was one place that had this small ditch with a little bit of ice an water. Elijah went up to it, stopped for a second like he was going to jump… then he did. Several of the soldiers, in unison, said, “Airborne!” “He’ll be in the 101st.”

It was a great experience, much more than I expected. And I was surprised at the sincere and heartfelt appreciation we got from the troops. Please pray for these soldiers as they make their way to Iraq.