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January 3, 2008 8 of 14 Jay Updates
Dear Family and Friends,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This is the eighth installment in a series of email notes from me to you from Iraq. We are MORE than half-way through this deployment and it is funny how good that feels! With my EML (Environmental Moral Leave) coming up soon (which will take me out of the loop for 22 or so days), I will really feel like we are on the home stretch when I return.
We had a nice Christmas celebration here. The Christmas tree I sent you a picture of was a big hit on our dark FOB. We had several worship services around Christmas that were fairly well attended. I played old (many considered them antiques) Christmas VHS tapes I had of "It's A Wonderful Life", "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and "A Christmas Carol" on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our conference room and people enjoyed stopping by and watching parts of these classic movies.
Thanks to many of you who sent presents for both my Soldiers and me for Christmas. We all had a fun time distributing and opening the Christmas presents (I will attach a picture of some of our elves) many generous donors sent us. Thanks! {We are really currently overwhelmed with your generosity so please hold off any more "care package" type items until I get back from EML around March 1st. We do appreciate your generosity but we don't want to squander your giving. }
Our Contemporary Protestant worship service continues to be a blessing to many, including us preachers. My co-pastor Michael Oliver is on EML and will be out most of January so I'll be flying solo for a few weeks. I had a three-session mid-week study series "What Is Christmas Really About?" on Monday nights in the conference room of my TOC (Tactical Operation Center) and we had an average of seven in attendance. Soon we are going to begin watching the video series "That The World May Know" and this will be a good series to watch and to stimulate discussion. We are looking at some workshops for both our single and married Soldiers to help strengthen their marriages or prepare them for marrying the right spouse.
Karen and I celebrated (separately this year) our 21st anniversary recently. WOW! What a blessing to be married to a wonderful spouse for that long (hopefully Karen says the same thing!J); it just keeps getting better. She and the kids went to PA for Christmas to do some snow skiing and visit with some old friends along the way. It looks like we may very well be headed back to Europe in the fall so you might want to make sure your passports are updated and start saving money so you can come visit us. We love Europe and will gladly go back. There is still a possibility there will be a new job for me in Savannah when I return and that would be nice too.
Guess I'll sign off. Please keep praying for all of us and thanks for your generosity in supporting some of America's heroes that I have the pleasure of working with every day over here in Iraq.
Blessings,
Jay
Chaplain Jay Hearn
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