Mark Juchter
Mark R. Juchter
By Mark R. Juchter
Jan 14, 2009, 20:18

It has been a while since I've touched base, so I just thought I would
pass along greetings from Oklahoma. Things here are never dull. In the
past few months I've made it through my first National Prayer Luncheon
(Chaplain Cyr as speaker), learning to take over as chapel unit deployment manager, self-inspection monitor, and (joy of joys) becoming a government
purchase card holder (entails a lot of extra paperwork). We're looking at a command no-notice inspection sometime this year as well, hopefully before the staff drops down to almost nothing.

On that note, we're approaching a busy summer here. Three chaplains are
PCSing between now and September, and their replacements will be slow in
coming. We will be down to three chaplains in June, two in July, and
for a short time in August I might well be senior protestant, wing
chaplain, and possibly only one of two military personnel in the chapel.
We have, thankfully, gotten some help from "casuals," one Captain and
one SMSgt. We've also gotten some of the regulations changed to
alleviate some of our workload. It should be an interesting summer.

Despite the low manning I have been given the go-ahead to attend the
discernment conference in early July along with a few days of General
Convention. I look forward to catching up with as many of us as can
make it to Anaheim.

The first time I tried to post this I wrote that there was a strong possibility that I would deploy in late summer. Today I received a tasking to deploy to Qatar for 122 days beginning 6 September (departing before that). Given the fact that our manning should be picking back up around then, that shouldn't be a problem locally. Not that itbecomes my problem at that point and, in all honesty, I'm lookingforward to going when and if the time comes.

Through it all I am managing somewhat of a life off duty, in large part
thanks to the friendship and support of two local clergy.

Number of Holy Eucharist celebrations Sundays and Saturday evenings:

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Number of Daily Offices on weekdays:

Number of marriages:

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Number of other ECUSA services held:

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Number of baptisms 16 years or older:

Number of baptisms under 16 years of age:

Number of persons presented for Confirmation 16 years or older:

Number of persons presented for Confirmation under 16 years of age:

Number of persons presented for reception or reaffirmation:

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