Saturday, October 11, 1997

My Promise Keepers experience

By MARK PRESTON

I am thankful that I may share the Promise Keepers weekend with you. We departed DFW airport around 10 p.m. on a DC-10 filled with 385 men. We were singing in unison, "I'll Fly Away," as our plane took off. We arrived in Baltimore at 2 a.m. Eastern time.

We were taken from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., by bus and were let off at RFK Stadium around 3 a.m. From the stadium we walked 2-3 miles to the Mall where we set up camp.

I slept from 4 to 4:30 a.m., when I was awakened by my brother and nephew as they decided we had better go look at the memorials and sights before the crowd got too large.

We observed the Washington Monument and Lincoln Monument and were awestruck by these magnificent monuments. Each one of us agreed that our country has been truly blessed by God.

Then, amidst the quiet serenity, the shadows of the early morning, we approached the Vietnam Memorial. It was deathly quiet. We observed a larger than life statue depicting a woman medical officer tending to a dying, wounded soldier.

Despair was etched in their faces. And, for the first time in my life, the Vietnam War became a reality. And then to see my brother looking for a fellow schoolmate from Abernathy in the Vietnam Memorial Directory, to find his name on the wall and see the tears flow down my brother's face, it truly hit home with me.

To see the seemingly endless names of those lost in those terrifying jungles, it brought to reality to me the tragedy of the Vietnam War.

We finished our sightseeing and with eager hearts returned to the Mall for the experience we would never forget. To experience hundreds of thousand voices singing in unison the song "How Great Thou Art," glorifying the Father, was truly one of the most moving experiences in my Christian walk.

I am thankful I was able to be a part of it. What did I bring back from this experience? The joy of seeing denominational and ethnic barriers broken down in a time of humble and sincere worship. That we were unified in our love for Christ.

In fact, one of the speakers had each of us on the count of three yell out our affiliated denomination. Afterwards, he asked us if we could understand what was said. Of course it was not comprehensible with that many men yelling at the same time.

Then he asked each of us at the count of three to yell out "Jesus Christ." This we each understood fully, as this triumphant sound echoed through the hills of Washington.

This caused me to reflect on a song I heard the other day that stated, "We must all come together, because Jesus is coming soon."

Here we were, men of all walks of life coming together to humble ourselves before God, asking God to restore us that we may become better husbands, better fathers, better witnesses for Christ.

It was a very uplifting experience, one I will never forget as long as I live. To see grown men, with tears flowing down their cheeks, praying for their wives and children was truly heartwarming.

How can we as men be better leaders in our family? We can stand alongside our wives in drying those dishes instead of going to the couch and grabbing the TV remote.

We can dust; we can run a vacuum; we can fold clothes. It won't hurt us!

We can find more time for our families instead of letting work projects have first priority. We can read more to our kids.

More importantly we can pray more with our families, hand in hand. We can lift our kids up in prayer more and they will surely grow in the grace of God as a result.

The Holy Spirit is working in wondrous ways throughout our nation and the world. His presence was clearly felt this past weekend in Washington, D.C. I am grateful the Lord cleared a path for me to participate.

It was a weekend in which hundreds of thousands of men came to our nation's capital to say, "God, we love You." We hope to show this in the numbers that are here, and that Your name be glorified by it.

God, you are the sole source for the solutions to our problems. Not through political agendas, of which Promise Keepers is not affiliated, but instead through the hearts of people.

God Bless.