The Home Front
For families who have a parent in the military, either a father or mother (or both in some situations) who is deployed to an area of current war activity, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, there are two fronts– the one that is seen by the pubic with TV news reports of new developments and the home front.
The home front seems like private situation. In a way it is, since the reactions to the situations vary from person to person. However, with so many troops abroad, thousands of children have to live with the fact they may never see their father, mother or other relative alive again.
I can tell you from working with the youngest of children to soon-to-be- adult teenagers, the pressure to be a kid is much more than I had when I was young. To compound all those factors with lack of a special person in their life not at home for months at a time is often too much for young individual to understand and comprehend. We work as a church to help our children in this situation and the families with deployed soldiers in different ways.
First, as a church organization, we honor those people who are away in the U.S. military as special people. We have a particular board at the entrance of the church to update information about those who are deployed. We have a special ministry that sends food and care packages to soldiers from this church and other soldiers who are not a part of our church, so they all know they have a church praying for them. For the families who have a loved one deployed, we have a different group that meets on a regular basis to talk about issues they have in common. Sometimes these issues are emotional, and recently have been dealing with financial difficulties.
Besides spiritual and emotional guidance, the families of those deployed have a representative within the church dedicated to make sure each family is given all legal and financial support due from government sources. This includes the constant exchange of information via the Internet, phone calls and live streaming videos to make the distance apart closer than in the past. This is always important around holidays, when emotions seem to increase for missing family members.
As a youth minister, my primary concern is the children of the families who have a relative who has been deployed. As noted earlier, the reaction varies with the age and personality of the individual. Some try to deny or hide their feelings, and I work with these people to share, even if it is just to me, how they really feel because they love and miss their mother or father more than they show. As a group, we have projects that work in conjunction with other church activities and we try to get the youth involved in making special items for the soldiers, whether they are a member of this church or not.
Music has always been a part of my life, and we use music to show how much we care with special church concerts dedicated to those who are deployed. These is a really fun and meaningful events for everyone.
For every soldier on the war front, there is another front, the home front, which is just as important to those deployed. It gives a reason for why they are in harm’s way in first place … to protect us and to keep us free.
Peace be you with always,
Rev. Paul Abernathy
“Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” -2 Peter 1:2
Contact Paul Abernathy at paulabernathy@gmail.com.
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