Updating Words of Comfort to Warriors

It’s been three decades now, but retired Air Force chaplain James E. Townsend hasn’t forgotten the fear on the faces of wounded soldiers.

During his tour of duty in Vietnam, he would walk the floors of a military hospital in Da Nang each night, offering injured servicemen words of comfort about God’s love for them. What he didn’t have, and longed for, was something tangible to leave behind, like a Bible or prayer book, to give them solace amid the explosions and screams and fear of dying young.

That’s why Townsend volunteered to help Evan Hunsberger undertake a daunting Eagle Scout badge project that may eventually bring comfort to hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women.

After three years of labor, Evan, a 16-year-old Boy Scout from Orange, has updated a World War II-era United Methodist Church devotional filled with prayers, Bible verses and inspirational stories. He searched out several dozen new passages of spiritual writing from women, people of color and leaders of non-Christian faiths--all of whom were excluded in the original version, published in the early 1940s.

Townsend said he used his military contacts to get Department of Defense officials to agree last month to distribute up to 1 million copies of the newly revised “Strength for Service to God and Country” to members of the armed forces.

The first 30,000 books will be published in March, and United Methodist Church officials have begun a $3-million fund-raising campaign to subsidize the rest.

Evan’s ambitious project, which required about 10 times the average amount of effort that goes into earning an Eagle badge, was destined for obscurity until Sept. 11. The new interest in spiritual and military matters generated by the attacks has put the 380-page book into a different, high-profile light. And Evan, an unassuming youth who loves snowboarding and plays fullback on the Servite High School varsity football team, is winning national attention and awards for his work.

“There are lots of worthy Eagle Scout projects, but it was very nice to see one that was spiritually focused and has such an ecumenical appeal,” said Larry Coppock, national director for Scouting ministries for the United Methodist Church.

The book, which has an entry for each day of the year, was originally given by the church to young Methodist men and numerous others headed into the military, beginning in World War II.

Joe McClendon, a 74-year-old oil company executive in Oklahoma, still keeps on his desk the copy he got in 1946.

“What makes the book so special to me is that [shortly before he headed to boot camp] my mother marked something for me on each page in pencil--underscored a message or made a special note,” said McClendon, who carried it with him during the Korean War.

Evan came to the book almost accidentally because the devotional was also special to his grandfather, Gene Hunsberger.

As a Marine corpsman during the bloody Pacific battles of World War II, Gene often read prayers from “Strength for Service to God and Country” to mortally wounded Marines and sailors.

“He read the book to many dying Marines,” said his son Donald. “He was right in the thick of it. He carried it with him for the rest of his life.”

Donald said the book resurfaced three years ago when his mother, cleaning out closets while Gene was hospitalized because of a stroke, almost threw it away.

“I rescued it from the Goodwill stack,” said Donald of the book that still has his father’s fingerprints on many of the worn pages.

Donald and Evan, then 13, talked about the devotional and decided updating it would make a good Eagle Scout project.

Evan asked his grandfather, dying from complications of the stroke, what he thought about the project.

“He said, ‘It’s not a good project. It’s a great project,’ ” Evan recalled. “We had to do it for sure after that. It was so meant to be.”

Evan, with help from family, friends and Scouts, spent the next three years securing the book’s copyright, typing in the original copy and soliciting new prayers from a diverse array of America’s religious leaders.

He ended up with 40 new entries, including ones from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Duke Divinity School professor Karen Westerfield Tucker and United Methodist Bishop Ernest Light, an African American.

“My father used to say he saw no difference in the blood of one person and the blood of another person,” Donald Hunsberger said. “He saw no distinctions between people.”

The revised book’s newfound diversity was also needed if armed forces officials were going to distribute it.

Said retired chaplain Townsend: “It’s absolutely essential if it’s going to get into military. The materials aren’t the kinds of things that seek to convert people. They offer help, comfort and strength.”

Some veterans such as McClendon don’t like tampering with the original material.

“I have reservations about this,” he said, adding that instead of mixing multiple faiths into one book, each religion should have its own volume. “It dilutes the Christian message. I just don’t think it really needed to be updated.”

Methodist officials say they also plan to eliminate outdated entries that either are specific to World War II or offensive to minorities.

Evan estimates that it’s taken more than 2,000 hours to complete the project. “Every weekend when I had to do some work, my friends wanted to go out. It was so hard to make the sacrifices to finish the book.”

His work has impressed Scouting officials. In March, Evan, a Catholic, will be given the United Methodist Church’s Good Samaritan Award. He’ll become one of only two youths outside the denomination to receive the honor, which has been presented to 160 recipients.

“So many kids his age, they want instant gratification,” Coppock said. “It’s a credit to him that he would see this project through.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

An Eerie Echo From a Very Different Sept. 11

Here is the original Sept. 11 entry from “Strength for Service to God and Country,” a devotional written for servicemen in the early 1940s. The same entry will appear in the updated edition.

CHOSEN TO SUFFER

“They therefore departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name.”

--Acts 5:41 (A.R.V.)

*

All of us are called upon to suffer in one way or another. Much of our suffering goes to waste because it is not geared up with an all-compelling purpose. A great cause, such as liberty, chooses men who are big enough to suffer, men who “can take it.”

It chooses men who have the stuff in them to endure hardships, who can laugh at privations, who are willing to give up privileges, comforts and ease. It chooses men like the apostles who, after being treated in a most shameful way and cruelly flogged, came from that experience rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ.

Great causes have a way of choosing men who are worthy to suffer. And it is through men who suffer that great causes come to victory. The highest blessings that we enjoy today came in this way. Christ on the cross, Washington at Valley Forge, Lincoln baited by newspapers and even by his Cabinet members, are a few among many who were chosen to suffer for great purposes and were found worthy--bringing victory to the cause that chose them.

In these days the great cause of liberty is again choosing men to suffer for its sake. Shall we who are chosen be found worthy?

PRAYER

Our Father, we are being called upon to suffer for the sake of all men everywhere. The great cause of liberty, with all that it means, is calling for men who are worthy. Wilt Thou make us worthy in every way. Keep the high purpose of freedom uppermost in our hearts, and cleanse us from all selfishness. Dedicate us anew to the high cause of world brotherhood, and give us the victory of an enduring peace. And so shall our suffering be not in vain. In the Spirit of Christ we pray. Amen.

--Dovert Walton McElroy,

First Christian Church, El Paso, Texas