For the seventh consecutive year, EPC Chaplain Endorser Mark Ingles has used his home Christmas lights display to benefit the Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado.

On December 2, Fox21News in Colorado Springs publicized the effort with a “Cans for Christmas” feature.

Ingles’ efforts to help local families has grown significantly—in his first year of collecting non-perishable food in 2014, 165 pounds were dropped off. By 2018, the haul was nearly 1,650 pounds and last year he collected 2,200 pounds.

Capt. Graham Baily, an EPC-ordained chaplain assigned to the U.S. Air Force 509^th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., has received the annual Edwin R. Chess Award as the outstanding Company Grade Officer Chaplain within the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC).

The award is not the first for Baily and his ministry team. Past recognition includes the Charles R. Meier Award, which recognizes the accomplishments of an Air Force Chaplain Assistant, and an Outstanding Religious Support Team award.

“Graham is a tremendous example of a chaplain who goes far above and beyond in his ministry to the Airmen and many others he supports at Whiteman,” said Mark Ingles, EPC Chaplain Endorser. “A few months ago I went to Whiteman to visit Graham and experience his ministry firsthand. He was the project officer for the National Prayer Luncheon, and was hosting the Air Force Chief of Chaplains as their guest speaker. The event received rave reviews from all corners—including the Chief. That is just another example of the impact Graham is having.”

Baily and his religious support team provide and accommodate for the first amendment right of the Airmen and families of Whiteman AFB to freely exercise their faith and receive pastoral care. Baily said that that is their official mission, but he has a second variation in mind as well.

“The way it works itself out in my life and in my work is that we are here to love Airmen,” he said. “Coming alongside them in good times and bad to partner with them in their own perseverance as they strive to become the best versions of themselves.”

After separating from the Air Force as a Senior Airman in 2000, Baily attended college and then graduate school. He then became a pastor. While working on a sermon in 2006, he paused to reflect on some of the difficulties in his own life as a young pastor, husband, and father.

“I just sat and talked with God for a while,” Baily said. “I asked Him, ‘Where is this journey of ministry taking me and my family? Is this the right place for me to continue serving?’”

While reaching into a desk drawer to retrieve a notebook, he found an Air Force coin that had been given to him by a chaplain before he left the Air Force.

“Holding it in my hand, there was just this moment of clarity,” Baily recalled. “When it became very clear to me that this community—the community of people in the United States Air Force—was the community that I wanted to serve in some way.”

He said he did not know what that service would look like at first, but that it eventually began to take shape.

Baily earned a Master of Divinity degree and began to serve as an USAF Reserve chaplain in 2009. He also continued to work as a civilian pastor in local congregations. In 2012, he rejoined the active-duty Air Force to serve Airmen and their families.

Since joining team Whiteman, Baily has made a lasting impact in the areas of leadership, base and community involvement, and in his strides to continually self-improve.

In the last year alone, he piloted a $135,000 renovation to the base ministry center. He also volunteered more than 220 hours within the community as an athletic coach/mentor and academic lead for resilience outreach at Gordon College.

Baily became only the second Air Force Chaplain to be admitted to the Clinical Pastoral Education program, through which he learned to respond as a minister to traumatic emergencies and engage in spiritual triage in a hospital setting. He recalled the first trauma he responded to—a severe burn victim who had survived a house fire.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “The time spent at the hospital has really transformed the way that I engage with people.”

He described his approach now as trauma-informed ministry.

“When I engage with people now, I am far more mindful of what they’ve been through and what they might be going through,” he said. “I have a better sense of how to help them recover from traumatic events.”

He described how that knowledge applies to his work as a chaplain within the Air Force.

“More people than we realize have experienced some type of traumatic event in their lives and they carry that around with them. Sometimes they experience that before they join the military and bring all of that with them.”

As examples, Baily cited abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, car accidents, and natural disasters. Since completing the CPE program, he has invested more than 200 hours responding to Team Whiteman during various traumatic crises.

“People who have experienced trauma need to feel safe,” he said. “They need to be able to mourn and they need to be able to reconnect in ways that are meaningful. Being mindful of that process toward recovery is important.”

Baily said the Chess Award, while a great honor, pales in comparison to the reward he takes from his work helping the people around him heal.

“There’s no way to briefly sum up what it’s like to journey with an Airman as they become their best selves,” he said. “As I guide them, I am also becoming my best self. I have been refined by the community that I care so deeply for.”

For the fifth consecutive year, EPC Chaplain Endorser Mark Ingles has leveraged his home Christmas display to benefit the Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado. In 2016, he collected approximately 650 pounds of canned and dry goods from people who stopped in front of his house in Colorado Springs, Colo., to view the display. In 2017, donations exceeded his goal of 1,000 pounds by almost 40 percent, and more than doubled the previous year’s amount.

“Last year I received 1,387 pounds of food—which was tremendous—and this year I’m shooting for over 1,500 pounds of food,” Ingles said.

Ingles’ work has captured the attention of local media outlets.

KOAA News 5 in Colorado Springs broadcast a feature story on December 12.

Fox 21 News in Colorado Springs also highlighted Ingles’ efforts on its broadcast on December 12.

EPC Chaplain Endorser Mark Ingles with Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo), recipient of the 2018 Chaplain Alliance Torchbearer Award

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Freedom presented its 2018 Torchbearer Award to Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) for her work in protecting the religious liberties of all military personnel and the chaplains that support them. Mark Ingles, EPC Chaplain Endorser, is a founding member of the Chaplain Alliance and attended the September presentation in Washington, D.C.

“It was amazing to share the room with Rep. Hartzler,” Ingles said. “She so strongly advocates for religious freedom, and being there when she received this honor was so moving. It was an evening to remember.”

Hartzler chairs the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Service Committee, and also is chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Values Action Team, a group of lawmakers dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans.

Col. Phil Wright, now-retired U.S. Army Chaplain and Director of the Chaplains Alliance, said Hartzler “has strongly defended the military’s vocal support for our first freedoms and decisively taken action when the religious liberty of service personnel has been threatened. No one in our armed forces should be denied the ability to exercise the very freedoms they have volunteered to defend, even with their life. Her commitment not only benefits our chaplains and our armed forces, but their families, communities, and the entire country.”

Other who attended the presentation included Sen. Roy Blunt (R- Mo.), co-chair of the Senate Values Action Team; Michael Berry, Director of Military Affairs for the First Liberty Institute; Emile Kao, Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society; Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.); as well as numerous other denominational Chaplain Endorsers.

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty is an organization of chaplain endorsers (the faith groups that provide chaplains for the U.S. military and other agencies needing chaplains). The endorsers in the Chaplain Alliance collectively endorse more than two-thirds of the 5,500 military chaplains serving in the United States Armed Forces.

“We’ll Meet Again,” a documentary series airing on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will feature the story of EPC chaplain Tim Mallard’s encounter with a Navy chaplain following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon. The segment is part of the episode, “Heroes of 9/11,” scheduled for broadcast and web stream on Tuesday, February 13, at 8:00 p.m. EST (broadcast times may vary by location).

In 2001, Mallard was assigned as a Department of the Army Intern in the Office of the Chief of Chaplains at the Pentagon. Following the attack, a chaplain’s tent was set up 50 yards from the impact site.

“All I did for days was walk around wearing my cross and people would walk up in pain, needing care,” Mallard told the United Methodist News Service in an article posted February 8.

On the morning of September 15, Mallard went to the chaplain’s tent and collapsed in the back, overcome with his own grief.

Capt. Doug Waite, a United Methodist chaplain serving in the U.S. Navy, saw Mallard and knew he needed help. He stopped, then hugged and prayed with young Mallard. The two men never saw each other again until the producers of “We’ll Meet Again” reunited them.

Mallard said Waite’s compassion that day has been critical for the next 16 years of his ministry, as he has gone on to serve multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The thing that made the most difference was when I looked up and saw his face, just the kindness and Christian compassion really touched me and encouraged me,” Mallard said. “I was able to go out and keep doing my ministry because of his ministry to me.”

Mallard now serves as director for recruiting and endorser relations, headquarters, Department of the Army in Washington.

Click here for more information about the PBS documentary series.

(with additional reporting from Kathy Gilbert, UMNS)