A little background

Well, if I do this blog I guess I should give a little background with some pictures (more pics to follow). I grew up in the Annapolis area my entire life until I left to go to the Coast Guard Academy. My dad was in the Coast Guard and still works for them as a civilian, but we never had to move from the street I grew up on...very unusual for a military brat to have that stability! As you can tell from the picture at the left I was a complete angel growing up, as my mom will attest (actually I was pretty good as a kid but had my moments as a teenager...luckily I had parents who were wise and who prayed). I left home in 2001 to go to the Coast Guard Academy. July 2nd, 2001 is a day I'll never forget. Hours of standing on the bulkheads "braced up," staring straight ahead and studying the indoctrination package we'd been given. I know at least one of my "classmates" dropped out of the academy on the first day. It must've been demoralizing for his parents to still be on the campus when he quit. Of course, there were times I wanted to quit the academy (about 28% of my class dropped out or were kicked out during the 4 years), but there was no way I was going to go home as the guy who couldn't I hack it. The great thing about the difficulty is that I built some incredibly strong friendships with my classmates. I still talk with many of them on a consistent basis and we make it a point to get together during vacations. I graduated in May of '05 and went to the CGC FORWARD, a 270' cutter out of Portsmouth, VA. I was the Weapons Officer for the first year on board and I felt like I was thrown to the lions. My division was very antagonistic at the beginning but by working with them and spending a large portion of my time with them we developed a great working relationship by the end and I still keep in touch with them via email. While on board I was able to visit a lot of countries: Colombia, Panama, Honduras, Guatamala, Guantanamo Bay (not really Cuba), Haiti, Curacao, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Getting to transit through the Panama Canal was one of the highlights of my tour on board. I have a few pictures of that below. Another highlight was a search and rescue case off of the Dominican Republic. There was a sailboat with 42 people on board that capsized and all of the people went into the water. We arrived on scene about 12 hours later and rescued three men holding onto a gas can just before sunset. That night I was on watch as the OOD (Officer of the Deck, basically responsible for driving the ship while captain is down below) and we heard voices off the port bow. I slowed the ship down and we were drifting towards them. We adjusted the speed to keep them in our lee while we piped "Man Overboard" to wake up the crew. We picked up three more survivors in that group. That night around 2 am we found another group of four people. Three of them were uninjured and were able to hold on to the cargo nets while we pulled them on deck. The last one was cut and injured and unable to hold around, and there was a shark swimming around him. We lowered the small boat and I went with them to haul the guy out of the water. We quickly pulled him on board which is a moment I won't forget. During the next three days we rescued another 8 people, each time it was exhilarating to be saving people. We picked up our final survivor on the last day of the search, 96 hours after the boat had capsized. He lacked the strength to hold on to the nets so we sent in a swimmer who put him in a harness and he was hulled on deck. I've never seen someone so exhausted and dehydrated. He just laid on deck while we put him in blankets (he was hypothermic despite the warm water temperature) and he was slowly given water and later food.

After finishing my tour on the ship I was given orders to the LANTAREA Command Center. I was disappointed with my orders to say the least. I had requested to transfer out of the area and expected to be moving since the detailer didn't call me to consult about my orders; however, I think in retrospect that it was divine providence. In Ruth the bible uses an unusual phrase, in some versions it's "it just so happened." It just so happened that I was re-stationed in the Portsmouth area. It just so happened that I started going to Sovereign Grace. The "it just so happened's" are endless. I was on shore and had plenty of time off. I got plugged into a great church where I've been able to develop some great relationships and have been given sound teaching that has helped me in my Christian walk. Remember the guy we picked up after 96 hours in the water? That's what I felt like spiritually when I came to Sovereign Grace. I felt malnourished and exhausted from walking alone. I've been fed well spiritually in the past year and am looking forward to establishing myself in the community down in Pensacola. For those of you who feel alone and discouraged the best thing you can do is get involved in your local church. Find good people there and sacrifice your time to develop relationships with them. For those who are already in a great church and have those friendships and do feel well fed I hope you look for people on the fringe. There's a lot of people who go to church and leave...they're in and out and don't have the supportive community that you have. I know we tend to talk to the same people week in and week out, but we need to be seeking out others and inviting them in. I've felt very welcomed in the church, and I hope you continue to welcome others.