Working with the Chaplains

See the pretty trees around "our lake".

Our Christmas tree and a bear, of course.  :)

     This past couple weeks have been very challenging.  In an effort to try and give the LDS soldiers a nice Thanksgiving Day, we tried to arrange a nice day for those who didn't have the opportunity to go home.  Some did go home, but many can't afford to fly home at Thanksgiving, and then a month later for Christmas.  (The weather was bad for flying that week anyway.)
     We tried to arrange for some of the soldiers to go to homes of LDS memers for the day.  So we asked for permission to do this.  One person told us that it would be better to use families of service members that live on the base so that we wouldn't have to worry about how to get them to the homes.  Then we were told that was not allowed, because it would be "fraternizing" if these soldiers ended up in an officer's home.  So we then pursued finding non-military families off post.  We were told that we could do that if we gave the names of the families so that background checks could be done on the heads of families.  But they would not be able to be picked up by the family because none of these soldiers in training are allowed to ride in a POV (privately owned vehicle).  They could hire a taxi, for $20 one-way, but not get in anyone's car. 
     Well, we didn't have enough time for these background checks, and the transportation was a problem.  So we thought we would have a dinner at the church in town.  The only reasonable way to get them to the church is to have someone with a military drivers license volunteer to drive an army van.  The person who sometimes does this for us was unavailable for Thanksgiving, due to family travel plans.
     So we thought OK, our last resort is to have a dinner on post, in the building that we use for church services.  Travel would not be an issue because the soldiers could walk to it.  So we formally asked for permission to use the building that day.
     After the request passed from one person to another, it ended up on the head chaplain's desk.  He called us and formally denied our request.  He said that since all chaplains would be off duty that day, he couldn't allow us to use that building and have an event there, "in case something happened, and a chaplain was needed".  So we gave up. 
     Next year we will start earlier if we decide to pursue the "Adopt A Soldier" program.  The thing is that we want our soldiers to go to LDS homes so that they can relax in an acceptable atmosphere - not to just any home that might volunteer. 
     This week we got a call about a problem in the Chapel Annex that we use.  The furnace broke and it was thought to be dangeous to use because of a gas leak.  We were pleased to note that the chaplains had already arranged for another place for us to hold our meetings.  We felt that they were being very helpful and we appreciated their efforts.  Later we got another call saying that the building has been cleared and that we can use it after all.  It was a good week though, knowing that they do want to help us carry out our purposes.