March 31, 2005

Pence Extols M/Sgt. Hiester, Role of Soldiers for Others

By JIM BARBIERI

The service and sacrifice of M/Sgt. Michael Hiester have made possible a hope for democracy and freedom in Afghanistan and beyond.

That was conveyed emphatically by Congressman Mike Pence to the overflow crowd this morning at the 10th annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, held in the Wells County Arts, Commerce & Visitors Centre.

Mayor Ted Ellis had noted at the outset that in the first year of the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast here, it came against the continuing backdrop of the Roush Park murder that had stunned the community.

The opening breakfast was held at the Dutch Mill, which was to burn to the ground within a couple of years amid other community adversities.

Congressman Pence said sadly that what has happened this time is not unique in the state or nation but the loss in Bluffton is no less grievous.

Pence marveled at the courage of M/Sgt. Hiester’s wife, Dawn.

He was reminded too of his own Christmas season trip to Afghanistan. Pence, a member of the House International Relations Committee reported going into a mess hall at Kabul with an armload from among 25,000 cards he had brought from America.

As soldiers originally spotted him to be a “dignitary,” they seemed to be enduring more than enjoying the interruption.

However, when he explained that a couple of weeks before departure he had announced he would take cards from people of the area to the Middle East sector, the response had been overwhelming with 25,000 Christmas cards thus resulting.

At that word, the soldiers’ eyes lit up wherever he delivered the cards. Their appreciation was moving.

Pence also told of the Afghan president urging telling the American people that because of the American soldiers they now had a chance for success.

Pastors on the program this morning also made references to the community’s sorrow and the support felt here for the family of M/Sgt. Hiester whose service and sacrifice reminded that Christ gave his life for us -- that our lives should be for others.

In his central message, Congressman Pence used his political experience in interpretation of the Bible’s greatest story as just reviewed with passion in the churches here and elsewhere.

Referring to the “economy of politics,” Congressman Pence said that whoever is in power doesn’t like it for a different power base to form.

Jesus was misunderstood even before he was born, related Pence, who said that King Herod regarded himself as king of Jews, thus seeing Jesus as a rival to power. In his brutality, Herod had infant boys murdered as the Bible told it.

In the years just before America won its freedom, the impetus for independence was brewing in the churches and wherever people gathered, part of the buzz about what was to come for independence.

In Christ’s time, as the word had spread about Jesus drawing huge crowds with his messages and such accounts reached Jerusalem, the misunderstanding in this buzz was that Jesus was leading a rebellion. He compounded the problem when giving short shift to the Pharisees, making plain that to them that he opposed their ways fiercely.

But, as Pence further cited, Jesus also was misunderstood by his friends, the disciples who were amazed he knew they had talked about who among them was the greatest.

And Jesus spoke in what Pence regards an irony as he told his soldier captors that they must have believed he was leading a rebellion.

What Jesus was seeking was not to be king of that difficult terrain or any land but to be “king of your heart,” declared Congressman Pence -- a message further reminding a number in the crowd today of Mike Hiester and his unselfish service.

Pence called on the audience to let Jesus Christ be “king of our lives.”

Bluffton High School student Nicole Morrissey provided beautiful music vocals on gratitude to God and love of Jesus.

Pastors Donald Marlowe of the Bluffton Church of God, Pastor Doug McClure of Grace Baptist Church, Pastor Lyle Breeding of Sonlight Wesleyan Church, Pastor Gary Lewis of the Bluffton First United Methodist Church and Pastor Bud Abrams of the First Baptist Church all had roles in the prayer breakfast program.

More on the event will be in Friday’s News-Banner.

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