Lt. Col. Gary Morsch with an Iraqi friend. Courtesy of Gary Morsch

When I joined the Army Reserves as a doctor in 1993, I wanted to ease the suffering that war causes. As an Army doctor, I have the privilege of caring not only for our soldiers, but also for wounded civilians and for prisoners of war.

I headed for Iraq this year with mixed emotions. My heart was heavy as I said goodbye to my loved ones, but I also felt excitement and enthusiasm. I believe everything we do and everything that happens to us is a part of God's story. My going to Iraq was part of that story.

The night before our departure from Fort Bliss, I drove around the little town nearby and heard bells ringing at a small Catholic church. I went in and sat in the back row. The text was 1 Corinthians 13, the well-known chapter on love. I knew that would be my mission in Iraq. No matter what else I would be called upon to do there, I wanted to love every person I met or served, whether a wounded American soldier, an Iraqi POW, or an innocent civilian.

My assignment was to be the field doctor for a battalion near the Iranian border. My duties were to take care of soldiers in the medical tent, provide supervision and training to eight combat medics, and visit two detainee camps to treat POWs. The work was seven days a week, 12 to 15 hours a day.

A holy Humvee moment
One day I was supposed to travel by convoy to a military hospital in Baghdad to accompany a prisoner with a severe abdominal infection, but the mission was canceled after a bomb hit a convoy returning to our camp. That was the third time in five days that one of our convoys had been hit, so we waited until a nearby combat unit could beef up security. A day later we headed out.

As I sat in the back of a Humvee with this very sick POW, I asked myself what I thought every soldier in that convoy was asking: Why are we doing this for someone we consider our enemy? I could see risking my life and the lives of American soldiers for another American. But risking all this for an enemy POW?

In addition to the anxiety I was feeling as we made our way along the dangerous road to Baghdad, I was also feeling very lonely and homesick. When I realized that it was Sunday, and that I was going to miss the chapel service again, I grew even more depressed.

So there I was in this armored vehicle, wearing about 50 pounds of body armor, helmet and weapons—the full "battle rattle." Standing next to me was the gunner, his head sticking through the roof of the Humvee, constantly spinning one way, then another, aiming his machine gun at anything that moved, looking for snipers, motioning for cars to stop or move out of the way, and screaming at drivers who didn't understand.

We drove down the highway as fast as we could, trying to make ourselves a more difficult target to attack, tailgating the Humvee in front of us so a suicide car bomber could not come between us, and being tailgated by another Humvee. Sitting in front of me was a soldier monitoring the radio, who received messages from the Humvees ahead of us and yelled this information to the gunner and me.

I decided to fight off my sorrow by listening to some music on my MP3 player. My son-in-law, Eric, had loaded my player with about 1,000 songs before I left home. Since it was Sunday, I decided to listen to some praise music. The first song was by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir:

Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place; I can feel His mighty power and His grace: I can hear the brush of angels' wings, I see glory on each face; surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.

Speeding toward Baghdad, crammed into the back of a Humvee, I sensed the presence of God as never before. I felt enveloped by the presence of God—God around me, God above me, God in me. As tears ran down my dusty cheeks, I peered through the thick, bulletproof window at Iraqis in their flowing robes, their mud-walled houses, children at play, the tall and stately palm trees. And just as surely as I felt the presence of God in that Humvee, I sensed God's presence in all that I saw—here, in this desolate country, with the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Kurds. God was surely here. He loves Iraq.

Then I thought of what this convoy was doing, and the words of Jesus came to me: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). I was filled with a deep sense of peace. I was still worried about the road ahead, but I had a sense of contentment that everything was going to be fine, no matter what happened. I knew that God profoundly loved every person on both sides of this war.

This sense of peace and contentment lasted throughout my time in Iraq. It had nothing to do with bravery or courage on my part, but everything to do with the sense that God was with me, and that many people were praying for me.

I found one passage of Scripture, as paraphrased in The Message, especially encouraging:

"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. … Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am" (Phil. 4:6-7, 11-13).

Baptizing our brothers
The Saturday before I left Iraq was one of the most amazing days of my life. I was scheduled to see patients and make rounds at the POW camp, and I asked the chaplain to join me. I wanted to say goodbye to the prisoners. Many of these Muslims had become Christians, and they had been asking for a baptismal service.

The chaplain suddenly decided to conduct a simple service. The POWs gathered their water bottles, and we pulled a cot out of one of the tents, setting it in the middle of the compound. One by one, the POWs sat on the cot and leaned back while we poured water over their heads and baptized them in the name of Christ. We baptized about a dozen that day.

During the baptisms, we asked each man if he wished to take a Christian name. One man asked me to write down each of the apostles' names so he could choose one. Another prisoner, named Afshin, asked me to suggest a name. I suggested James, the brother of Jesus, and told him that my father and brother are named James. Since my family name was on my uniform, Afshin asked about Morsch as well.

The chaplain asked me to baptize Afshin. I asked my friend what name he wished to take. He said, "I wish to take the name James Afshin Morsch." With tears in my eyes, I poured water onto his head, baptizing my Muslim friend into the fellowship of Christ. After our baptismal service, James pulled me aside and told me it was an Iraqi tradition to give a good friend a gift. He slowly slipped a ring off his hand.

"This is my wedding ring," he said. "I haven't seen my wife in many years, and I probably will never see her again. I'd like to give it to you."

I was stunned.

"No, James, you must keep it," I eventually said. "Someday you will see your wife again."

"No, I want you to have it," he said, as he pressed the ring into my hand.

We hugged and said a tearful goodbye, and then I walked out of the POW compound. It was time to return home.

I left on a plane full of wounded soldiers. The airstrip was under attack even as we taxied for takeoff. But I was at peace. God had brought me to Iraq to serve soldiers, civilians, and the enemy. But I saw that those categories are meaningless before God. He loves them all, and calls us to serve them all.

Gary Morsch and Dean Nelson wrote Heart and Soul: Awakening Your Passion to Serve (Beacon Hill Press). Morsch is founder and president of Heart to Heart International (www.hearttoheart.org), a humanitarian relief agency in Kansas City, and Nelson is director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

	What did you think of this story?
	Please to give us your feedback.

Read more from 'Today's Culture'

Home  |  People of Faith  |  Stories of Hope  |  Today's Culture
Build Your Faith  |  Laughing Matters  |  Archives  |  Contact Us

				Try an Issue of Today's Christian Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Today's Christian as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Subscribe to the Today's Christian Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help