in military? Non-adventist Hospitals etc etc

Is the Good News Shared? Or is it compromised?

Compromise: I work in a largely secculare society who does not care one iota for the 2300 days. My patients come from a several state area, and will typically only be in this hospital for a few days. My spiritual contact with them must be on a very basic level. Anything beyond that must be done in follow-up, later in their life. If God is leading them, God will lead them into whatever truth God wants them to know at the time God wants them to know it, and they are ready for it.

As a military chaplain, some people joined the SDA chruch because of me. But, the numbers were not large. Again, more of my work was on a very basic level. The military is a reflection of our society. Society today is prmarily secular, or however you might want to state it.

Maybe the spiritual help that I can give a young soldier stationed in S. Korea, and seperated from his wife, is support to remaining faithful to her, rather than a doctrinal exposition on the 70-weeks.

Is this a compromise. You tell me. In spiritual development there is a time and a place for everything. That time and place is often of God's chosing.

Much of what I did as a military chaplain, and what I do now as a hospital chaplain (I am a clinical member of the team.) is not overtly religious/spiritual. But, that put me in contact with people, and it keeps me in the organization, where I can do other work.

My primary motivation to be a military chaplain was to minister to SDAs. To do that, I had to minister (I mean actually serve) others.

Some examples of spiritual ministry:

a) A soldier served in Viet Nam, and recieved combat medals for his service. After VN, he got out, and joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. His marriage later fell apart, and he joined the Army. He and his wife rconcilled, and he decided that his spiritual life depended upon his release from the military, which placed him under the service of Saten.

The command turned against him, as he was a VN combat veteran who had served with valor. I was assigned to evaulate his sincerity, and was given that with a laugh. The report I wrote turned the entire command to his favor with the exception of the 2-star general who ordered his legal staff to find a way to refuse his request for an honorable discharge. His staff JAG (lawyer) told him that I had sowed it up, and it could not be broken. He said: Not while I am in command here.

Following the transfer of the Major General, his request went to the Department of the Army, and was granted. I recieved a commendation by another 2-star for my involvement in that case. That was my first assignment as a chaplain, and I then became known at the base where I was assigned as the expert in such matters, and invovled in a number of others.

b) Wanda (not her real name) was certified as a LPN/LVN. She was a SDA assigned to the base hospital of my first assignment, and took the position that she could not work in the hospital on Saturdays. Due to my intervention she was not punished, but was later assigned to S. Korea.

I also served in S. Korea during the same time Wanda was assigned there. She took the same Sabbath posiiton, but she now tightened up on it. I urged her command to discharge her, but under honorable conditions. They refused and transfered her back to the United States.

Following my return to the United States I recived a telphone call from the Command Chaplain of the base where she was assigned. Wanda had now tightened up on her Sabbath restrictions more than before, and in addition she reserved the right to refuse to give the patients physician prescribed medications as she would tell the patients that with prayer they did not need medications.

I was able to provide the Command Chaplain with the information that he needed to give her an honorable discharge. She had been headed for prison. Wanda felt that my intervention had been due to the infulence of Saten, and that I was Saten's agent instead of Christ's.

c) In the 1980s a NCO convert to the SDA Chruch refused an order to go to the gas chamber (training type folks) and Sabbath was convicted in a court martial of failure to obey a lawful order. That was given major attention by the media, and his sentence was reduced to a reduction in grade, and following some other relative minor punishment (which had ramifications that I will not develop her as his punishment involved working on Sabbath) he was assigned to S. Korea, during a time that I was satationed there. He quickly ran into other Sabbath problems. These were quite serious as he had a suspended prison sentence hanging over his head if anything else happened. At one point he was ordered to go to the gas chamber. But, a verifiable illness arose suddenly on Sabbath morning which prevented him from going to the gas chamber. During that period of time I had the home telephone number of a SDA retained (and SDA attorney) attorney in the US who was legally involved with him. On a number of occasions I telephoned that attorney, in the middle of his night, collect, to seek advice as to how to keep him out of prison. We accomplished that.

There are othe soldiers, SDA and non-SDA, whom God was able to use me to keep out of prison in connection with their religious convictions.

Did I always take their side? No, A SgtMajor called on me once to evaulate the request of a female SDA soldier. He told me up front that he could accomodate her request, and would do so if I told him that she was sincere. But, he had his own opinon as to whether she was sincere, and he was going to find out what I thought.

The issue was very simple: She had failed a PT (physical training) test. As a result, whe was ordered to do remedial PT on Saturday. She requested a total exception from such. Making a long story short, I informed her that I could get her remedial PT training rescheduled to Sunday. She informed me that she would rather do it on Saturday. I informed the Sgt.Major that she had agreed to do it on Saturday, and he smiled as he told me that he had felt that I would find her to not be sincere. She was another one who informed the SDA community that I was the devils agent for not supporting her in her request to have Sabbath off.