Service members, families connect 'across the miles'

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, May 19, 2009 [Episcopal Life] Wars create a distance that can't be measured merely by counting the miles between battlefield and home.

The distance separating service members and their families and friends can be filled with fear, anxiety and experiences too difficult to talk about. The time away changes those who go and those who stay.

A new three-part series of Episcopal Church resources titled Across the Miles is designed to help people bridge all of the distances created by military service. It includes material for congregations, service members, adult family members and children.

Reading Across the Miles is an Episcopal faith-formation companion piece to the Growing, Learning, Understanding materials produced by the Military Child Education Coalition. The activities include reading books, Scripture passages and Book of Common Prayer selections to help children consider the issues facing military families.

Praying Across the Miles includes a devotional booklet for parents and children separated by distance and one for adult family members. Each comes in a large format for those at home and a pocket-size one for those deployed. The booklet for children and parents includes weekly and special-occasion prayers to be said by all at the same time. The prayers include children's versions of specific prayers for each branch of the Armed Forces. The adults' booklet includes journal entries written by a chaplain and his wife during his deployment, along with Scripture readings and reflection questions.

Reaching Across the Miles focuses on ministry opportunities for congregations. It includes a liturgy for those leaving for military service and prayer cards for service members and those at home. Responding to a need

The resources were developed over a year and a half with the input of the people who will use them. "They told us what they needed," said Ruth-Ann Collins, associate program officer for adult formation in the Episcopal Church's Evangelism and Congregational Life Center. Collins spent time with service members, including chaplains, and their families on bases in the United States and Germany.

She learned that people wanted Episcopal Church-specific materials to help them stay connected in ways that go beyond e-mail, instant messaging and webcams, she said.

While couples need ways to maintain their deeper connection during deployment, any contact is good, said the Rev. Paul Moore, rector of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Killeen, Texas, near the Army's Fort Hood.

"The more contact between spouses across the miles there is," he added, "the more likely a healthy relationship is going to afterwards." Collins visited St. Christopher's during her research for the project, and drawings by children in the parish's preschool illustrate some of the materials.

Providing hope
The Rev. Sean Cox, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Bryan, Texas, and one of the military chaplains who helped prepare the materials, said he would like deployed people and their families to know that "there is hope in the knowledge that God does work in the midst of those times when we can't see, touch and otherwise experience those who are closest to us; that there is profound hope in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus."

Cox said he hoped that Across the Miles was "the beginning of a continuing conversation" that helped the Episcopal Church see that service to military members and their families can be "a renewed mission field."

"You don't have to be near an active military institution to be concerned with the needs of military families," he said, noting the involvement of National Guard and reserve troops as well as civilian contractors.

Moore agreed. "I have people in my parish who are hurting because they're separated by 6,000 miles and six hours of time, eight hours of time, and their loved one is in harm's way on our behalf.

So we pray for them before they leave, and we support the families when they're gone, and we welcome them home."

Episcopalians, Cox said, are "bearers of holy actions … that point to the very real experiences that people have throughout their life, including combat."

The resource is available here.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for Episcopal News Service.

» Respond to this article

Browse by Topic:

Browse by Topic: 2009 »   Anglican and Global Relations   Children, Youth and Young Adults   Congregational Ministries   Ecumenical and Inter-Religious   Education   Ethnic Ministries   Executive Council   FEAST: Faith, Environment, Action, Science, Technology   General Convention   House of Bishops   Liturgy and Music   Millennium Development Goals   Peace and Justice   Presiding Bishop   Program, Budget and Finance   Women and the Church