MOSUL, IRAQ (November 16, 2005) – Thanks to U.S. Army Covenant Chaplain Captain John Grauer, two soldiers who accepted Christ in Iraq were able to be baptized in a 1,600-year-old monastery in this city that some believe to be the ancient city of Ninevah.<\/p>\n
Grauer is a former church planter at New Song Covenant Church who now serves in the Army full-time. His wife, Tyra, is worship director at First Covenant Church in Anchorage, Alaska.<\/p>\n
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When the soldiers sought to be baptized, Grauer knew he wanted them to have an experience they would remember forever. “It would have been easy to do the baptism in a chapel, but with so much history all around, conducting the baptism in a place where other Christians have gathered for centuries carried special significance,” he says.<\/p>\n
Conducting a baptism in Iraq isn’t as easy as in the United States, however. Like the earliest church, the baptisms were conducted in a hostile environment. The soldiers and a Catholic priest who helped officiate the baptisms were brought to the St. Behnam Monastery in Strkyer vehicles, which are armored personnel carriers.<\/p>\n
The monastery is a regular meeting place for Christians in the Muslim-dominated area. Grauer arranged the service with the help of the monastery’s priest, Father Francis Djahola.<\/p>\n
Djahola attended seminary in Mosul and had made his home there for more than 20 years. When asked about an evangelical Christian performing a baptism in a Catholic church, Djahola said, “Evangelical or Catholic, we are Christians.”<\/p>\n
“In America it might be unusual to have an evangelical pastor conducting a service in a Catholic church,” says Grauer, “but on this day, denomination played no part.”<\/p>\n
The baptism also was international in more than simply location. Grauer led the service in English and Djahola translated in Syriac.<\/p>\n
And so, in the midst of a battle zone, the soldiers were baptized into the community of God.<\/p>\n