This week has been one filled with great inspi­ra­tion and sor­row for me.

I am writ­ing this from one of the most beau­ti­ful loca­tions I have ever been to. I am at Mal­ibu, which is a Young Life Camp located in Canada in a nar­row fjord called Princess Louisa Inlet. The first pic­ture included here shows the beauty of this place. The other is my inspi­ra­tion for this post.

On Mon­day, I arrived here with my son Wes­ley and about 50 young peo­ple from our church. We are here to serve the fam­i­lies of US mil­i­tary who have recently returned from deploy­ment in Afghanistan or Iraq. Some have only been back in the states for a few weeks, and this is the first real down time they have had with their wives, hus­bands and kids.

Re-entry can be very dif­fi­cult, and my role has been to serve as a small group leader with a few cou­ples. It has been truly rich and wonderful.

Prior to this week, I had no real under­stand­ing of the price these young heroic fam­i­lies pay for my free­dom. I am embar­rassed to admit that I have spent most of my adult life tak­ing them for granted. Nor did I know how I could ever repay them for their service.

Today, I can­not say that I fully grasp the extent of their sacrifice…but I believe I have greater insight as to how we can bet­ter serve them. These young hus­bands and wives need the oppor­tu­nity to truly unplug together and get reac­quainted with each other.

Up here at Mal­ibu, none have cell phone cov­er­age and just a few are granted lim­ited access to the net. There is noth­ing for them to do other than lis­ten to some very insight­ful mes­sages, play with each other, and con­nect. They have time set aside every day when their kids are well cared for and these cou­ples get to hike, boat, eat, nap and just be together.

I have asked sev­eral of them what those of us in their com­mu­ni­ties can do to best help them after they return from war. They said we can help them to con­nect with each other.

I know that few of you will have the oppor­tu­nity to invest a week up here at Mal­ibu, but if you know a mil­i­tary fam­ily in your com­mu­nity, you can offer to babysit their kids for a night or a week­end. Per­haps you own a time­share or a vaca­tion home you could offer for a few days. Maybe you could treat them to a gift cer­tifi­cate for a nice din­ner out.

One of our sol­diers who served in Iraq three times said that hav­ing some­one else pick up the tab at a restau­rant blesses him immensely. And they all appre­ci­ate a heart­felt hand­shake and thank you.

I would like to say thanks to those of you who have served our coun­try, or have fam­ily mem­bers who have served. Your sac­ri­fice is mean­ing­ful and so appreciated!

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Tags: Down Time, Family, Gratitude, Service

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 am and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.