A Note From Baghdad

I was forwarded this message written by a man I know who lives in Redding. It's an interesting read and since I don't have time to write a entry of my own, I thought you might like one from Baghdad. This man is a police officer in the US and is part of a group helping train the officers in Iraq. Talk about a wild job! Take a second to pray for this guy. I'm sure he'd appreciate it!
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Greetings from Baghdad!

I know, I intended to head to Babylon but there were no openings to go there, so I ended up in Baghdad, with what is called the P-3 unit which is supposed to "coach" the upper echelon on the Baghdad Police, generals, colonels, etc. in operating and administering the police departments in a manner consistant western departments. The history of the Iraqi police is that they were an extention of the Baathist military, a very top down totalitarian structure. The police were on the bottom and seen as corrupt and brutal.

The US has been trying to change that by putting police at the lower levels, including police academies, but with the structure on top unchanged, the improvements in training and mentoring have yeilded inconsistant results at best. What the P-3 unit is supposed to do is get the upper management on board....this will be difficult, but I think the idea is sound.

It s spiritually very hard here, but God has certainly been blessing me...I've been able to start each day in the Word, which is still really opening up to me. God has really impressed on me to pray for a compassionate heart for these Iraqis that I am meeting, so if you remember, I would really appreciate your prayers in this area. I know that from an earthly perspective this task looks virtually impossible, but this is the land of the city of Nineveh.

This is my third day of work, and I'm finding my perspective changing day by day, if not hourly. This, from a worldly perspective, has to be the most dangerous place on earth right now, a combination of Mad Max and Blackhawk Down. Everyone, including myself is armed with fully automatic weapons and our drives to and from work are like Code-3 runs without benefit of lights and siren. We travel in armored Chevy Suburbans with these huge antennae on them which make us really stand out from the local's vehicles, but everyone gets out of our way because they know we are targets for the terrorists IED'S (improvised explosive devices)...and yet I feel safe...I even had a white feather float down in front of me the day I got her (it's in my bible)...

I'm staying in what once was a 5-star hotel, maybe 30 years ago, and there has been some real effort to refurbish it (especially since march when a garbage truck carrying 1500 lbs of explosive detonated just east of the hotel-my room looks out onto the blast site-which blew out every window, door and hall ceiling in this eight story place....however God's hand was on all the 400 or so cops in this place, no one was killed but the two terrorists driving the garbage truck!)...

I know I'm rambling...I had another e-mail written that I couldn't get through to you, I trust that this one will.Will write more later,

In Christ,
Pat