ChristianWeek

A swirl of dust lifts him off his feet as three huge armored personnel carriers charge in front of his path.

After 13 hours of tactical meetings, logistical mousetraps and a couple of rocket warnings, C-130 detachment commander Tom Kolesnik is on his way to the Fraise chapel on Kandahar Airfield.

Kandahar is home to the largest international force on the front lines in Afghanistan. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship in the same building. The chapel, a camouflage brown pine building for a hundred souls, lies somewhere at the end of a myriad spartan barracks, the Tim Hortons and a concrete slab hockey rink. Phony stained glass is painted on the windows. Inside is silence.

At the entrance, a row of gun racks like cue holders at a bar invite soldiers to lay their burdens down. They are, however, to keep their side arms on them at all times—loaded.

Shelter from the war

The first sermon Tom heard at the Fraise chapel was about shelter.

“We had been there for three days and had been rocketed twice. The South African priest asked me for an impromptu reading of scripture. Instinctively I took my side arm harness off and laid it on the chair. That’s when I felt the weight of the place lifted.”

Tom’s initiative led to other officers following suit and laying down their weapons, as they raise their voices together in praise.

“We pray not only for our people here on the base, but for understanding between the nations, for peace and for justice. We often pray for healing of religious conflict.”

Tom goes to the evening service at five o’clock for Anglicans and Episcopalians.

“You can tell the Baptists ordered the chairs, cause they’re nice and soft,” says Kolesnik, an ex-Baptist turned Anglican.

The back of the church has a window with a cross painted on it. “They draw a curtain over the cross for other faith services,” says Kolesnik, a lay-reader from St Margaret’s Anglican in Winnipeg.

“The liturgy was a huge blessing to me—just knowing that your brothers and sisters in Christ were saying the same words around the world was comforting beyond words.

Take Terry Waite’s example. While he was in captivity in Lebanon, his strength was the unity of the liturgy. “I use the book of Common Prayer more than the Bible in this situation, because it is so reassuring.”

As a detachment commander of the C-130 airdrop and transport unit, Tom frequently takes on dangerous missions. His primary task is to re-supply soldiers on the front lines. His tactical airlift unit motto is “On Time, On Target” and he assures that they live up to it.

“We’re out-dropping the Americans 3 to 1. If there is something that needs to be done—rescue a soldier, fly into hostile territory, guys know that our unit is up for the challenge.”

As a commander in a nationally diverse base, Tom is required to maintain friendships in many different places. That friendship sometimes translates into a long-term bond. The trips in ultra-tense convoys, the leadership required to perform his duties, all these come back every week in the liturgy of a small pine building on the edge of camp that serves as spiritual oasis—the Fraise chapel.