{"id":8243,"date":"2005-12-15T15:35:08","date_gmt":"2005-12-15T20:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=8243"},"modified":"2011-07-06T08:29:10","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T13:29:10","slug":"4645","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2005\/12\/15\/4645\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Church Shares Christmas Spirit With Iraqis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MOSUL, IRAQ (December 15, 2005)\u00a0 &#8211; Alaska Covenanters have been playing an\u00a0 important role in different ways to show concern on behalf of Iraqi\u00a0 residents while also helping to advance the historic election taking\u00a0 place here today.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div>Troops in Iraq have been distributing gifts sent by First Covenant\u00a0 Church of Anchorage to let the Iraqi people know that there are others\u00a0 who care about their needs.<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/06\/1199.jpg\" rel=\"prettyPhoto[8243]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8244\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/06\/1199-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/06\/1199-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/06\/1199.jpg 402w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The Anchorage church has sent more than 45 boxes of items for\u00a0 distribution to families, children and soldiers, says Capt. John Grauer,\u00a0 an Evangelical Covenant Church chaplain serving with the U.S Army 4-23rd\u00a0 Battalion.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Pastor Ron Mancini and First Covenant Church have done a great job at\u00a0 giving assistance to the soldiers and families in Iraq,&#8221; Grauer says.\u00a0 &#8220;The Christian spirit has come through.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We were excited to help,&#8221; says First Covenant&#8217;s associate pastor Nathan\u00a0 Toots. &#8220;It started as a request from him &#8211; he has compassion for the\u00a0 people.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>The soldiers distributed the gifts prior to the election. In one case, a\u00a0 12-year-old girl from one of the families being visited invited the\u00a0 soldiers into the family home and encouraged the soldiers to sit down,\u00a0 although the parents were nervous and not sure what to think, Grauer says.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;As we walked in slowly, making sure the home and area were secure, the\u00a0 gifts were given out,&#8221; he recalls. Because the girl was the only member\u00a0 of the family who spoke English, she was the one who appeared to be in\u00a0 charge, which is highly unusual for a girl in the culture, the chaplain\u00a0 noted.<\/div>\n<div>The gift bags contained toothbrushes, clothes, coloring books, crayons,\u00a0 candies, toys of all kinds, and many other items that could not be\u00a0 purchased by some of the families in the various communities surrounding\u00a0 the city of Mosul. The girl kept repeating &#8220;thank you&#8221; in Arabic.<\/div>\n<div>Troops continued to offer gifts to residents of a neighboring community,\u00a0 encouraging the people to vote.<\/div>\n<div>Churches wanting to send packages to the battalion can send them to\u00a0 Captain John Grauer, HHC\/4-23 INF REGT, APO AE, 09319. Those sending\u00a0 packages should include written instructions to Grauer advising him for\u00a0 whom the items are intended (children, adult family members, troops). He\u00a0 says popular gifts include clothes (varying sizes) as well as shampoos\u00a0 and other personal items. Girls in particular seem to love stuffed\u00a0 animals, while boys are excited to receive balls \u2013 especially soccer\u00a0 balls \u2013 and small toy cars. &#8220;Coloring books and crayons are amazingly\u00a0 popular,&#8221; Grauer adds.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\"> <\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>Copyright \u00a9 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=8243&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSUL, IRAQ (December 15, 2005)\u00a0 &#8211; Alaska Covenanters have been playing an\u00a0 important role in different ways to show concern on behalf of Iraqi\u00a0 residents while also helping to advance the historic election taking\u00a0 place here today. Report This Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Alaska Church Shares Christmas Spirit With Iraqis - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2005\/12\/15\/4645\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alaska Church Shares Christmas Spirit With Iraqis - Covenant Newswire Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MOSUL, IRAQ (December 15, 2005)\u00a0 &#8211; Alaska Covenanters have been playing an\u00a0 important role in different ways to show concern on behalf of Iraqi\u00a0 residents while also helping to advance the historic election taking\u00a0 place here today. 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