Quoting another news organization, Fox Nation reports the following bit of good news. There were only three deaths in Iraq in December among the military, and none of them were combat related. YAY!
No U.S. Combat Deaths in Iraq This December
(CNSNews.com) – On the last day of 2009, December was on track Thursday to become the first month since the United States invaded Iraq almost seven years ago when not one U.S. soldier, sailor, airman or Marine has died in that country in combat-related circumstances.
Thanks be to God…..
While that is undoubtedly good news, we should not forget there is still much suffering in Iraq, especially for the church.
I just listened to a very enlightening and sobering interview on the BBC with Canon Andrew White of the Anglican Church in Iraq. Canon White has the largest Christian congregation in Iraq, with some 2,000 people attending his services in Baghdad each week.
But this is a dangerous time and 93 members of his church were killed last year. Many of those killed were Muslim converts.
He also works in diplomacy to try to resolve hostage situations, and on top of all this he has multiple sclerosis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002nrqx
Please remember our Iraqi brothers and sisters there who are suffering for the cause of Christ.
My heart aches for what ordinary people suffer in war and in areas that are torn by strife. It is particularly horrible when the strife is oriented not on defeating some great evil but is founded on perceived differences such as race, religion, tribe and such like. After all, when we get down to basics, whatever the tribe or race or religion, pain is pain and suffering is suffering and the blood that is spilled is red. With the psalmist, I cry….”How long, O Lord, how long….” Having been raised all over the world as a military dependent, I always found that the people I met were more like me than than different when the externals were swept away. Hatred based on those externals is rather incomprehensible to me–I have come to love too many people who were different from me–