By Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First Methodist Church, Fairfield
ACS Chaplain – United State Coast Guard, Station Galveston
Seasons greetings brothers and sisters. I pray this devotional finds you in good health and even better Holiday spirits. Wanted to share with you all an experience I had last week.
I am blessed to serve as the pastor at First United Methodist Church; but also, for the past year, I have had the blessed privilege of serving as an Auxiliary Chaplain for the United States Coast Guard. I am stationed with the men and women of Base Galveston Texas, which is one of the busiest Stations in the world. With mass amounts of commercial traffic to Houston, cruise ships departing every week, commercial shrimping/fishing operations, recreational boating, and sportfishing make it an extremely active base. The men and women of this unit are out there everyday doing search and rescue, preventing illegal fishing, searching vessels for contraband, ensuring boating safety, and performing law enforcement operations. It is a job that is rarely noticed among the thousands of people who live and work along the gulf coast of our beloved state of Texas.
This past Thursday some members of Fairfield First United Methodist Church accompanied me to Galveston to deliver small gifts to all the men and women on base. These gifts included a small ornament, candy cane, and a colored thank you page for our kids and students at Noah’s Ark Day School. We also put together and delivered 24 Christmas boxes (put together by our youth group) for the crews of two 87 ft Marine Protector Class Cutters, the USCGC Hawk and Alligator.
As we walked around base handing out these modest little tokens of the Christmas Season, you should have seen the looks on the Coasties faces. They were both surprised and excited to receive a small reminder of this time of Advent. We were able to speak with men and women of all ages and backgrounds, who had come from all over the U.S. and its territories. They were so appreciative and were so eager to get to talk to us and share just a moment of fellowship.
Our last stop was aboard the USCGC’s (United States Coast Guard Cutter) Hawk & Alligator. The crews knew we were coming so they had prepared lunch for us after giving us a tour of the vessels. We found ourselves listening as the crews told us how they would be working on Christmas day, standing by for search and rescue operations if the need arose. All of them would be spending this Holiday Season away from home and away from those they love. As the crews loaded the boxes onto their ships one excited Coastguardsman stated, “Hey, now I have something to open on Christmas day!” He then excitedly took the box to his bunk and the rest of the crew followed suit.
We spent that early afternoon sitting in the galley of the USCGC Hawk laughing and sharing stories with the crew. It reminded me of the scripture in Hebrews 10, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” In that small moment we were all having just a little Christmas fellowship and surely Christ was among us in the galley of that ship.
My friends, this Christmas season, let us remember those who will be on watch and ever vigilant for us while we enjoy this time of celebration. May we remember that Christ came in such humility as to show the world how we should behave towards one another in love and charity. If a few children’s drawings and candy canes can brighten the lives of the men and women who stand guard over our country; perhaps then we can be satisfied with the abundant blessings that abound within our community of Freestone County.
May your Christmas truly reflect the humility of the babe in the Manger brothers and sisters.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Mike McVey
(PS: Special thanks to Lt. Justin Brown USN, Russell Keaton, Sidney Flinner, John & Will Thorne, the youth group/kids at FUMC, and the students of Noah’s Ark for their help at making this possible).
