The Sack Lunches

I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap', I  thought.

Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down  the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.

'Where are you  headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
'Petawawa.  We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan .'

After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time...

As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask  his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five  bucks.  I'll wait till we get to base.'

His friend agreed.

I looked around at the other soldiers. None were  buying lunch I walked to the back of the plane and handed the  flight attendant a fifty  dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in   Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for  him.'

Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where  the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which  do you like best - beef or chicken?'
'Chicken,' I replied,  wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane,  returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class.  

'This is your thanks...'

After we finished eating, I  went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest  room..  A man stopped me. 'I saw  what you did.. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars.

Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I  want to shake your hand.' Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood  and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, 'I was a  soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch.  It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.

Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my  palm.

When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!

Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip  to the base.  I walked over to them  and handed them seventy-five dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base... It will be about time for a sandwich.  God Bless You.'

Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers.

As I walked briskly to my  car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of  meals. It seemed so little...

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America 'for an amount of up to and including my life.'

That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

Please send this on after a short prayer.. Prayer for our soldiers.

Prayer:
'Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen.'

A German's View on Religion

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history; it is the fanatics who march...it is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers..

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Drive-Up Service

Earlier this year, an Oregon man was driving his pickup truck down the street when he saw smoke billowing from the hood. His truck was on fire. There was no time to call 911, so the man pressed the gas pedal and drove straight to the McMinnville fire station. Flames were licking around the engine, but the firefighters quickly put it out. They've been joking ever since about their "new drive-up service."

Grace is God's drive-up service that helps us when life catches fire. We need it constantly, which is why the apostle Paul opened and closed so many of his letters with words like: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." He told Timothy to "be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:1). The writer of Hebrews bids us to come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

Grace is a word that conveys all that God does for us and gives to us through Jesus. It is God's Riches at Christ's Expense. It's the best remedy for an overheated life.

Between here and heaven, every minute that the Christian lives will be a minute of grace.
Charles Spurgeon