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BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

When he was 16, the Rev. Clark Carr accepted a call from God to 'relieve the despairing.' Decades later, he?s still answering that call, this time in Iraq, serving as chaplain for the 58th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Maryland National Guard.

Carr?s unit was mobilized April 23. While politicians, the media and soldiers look at Iraq as a war zone, Carr views his new surroundings as a mission field. He always has.

With 12 years of active military service and nine years in the National Guard, Carr has served in Germany, Turkey and Bosnia. In every mission, his job, he said, is to glorify God as he provides comfort and opportunities for religious expression to the soldiers.

With this deployment, Maryland will have more than 1,300 soldiers serving in Iraq, the state?s largest mobilization since World War II.

In Iraq, one of the most serious spiritual issues he will help soldiers address is the separation from loved ones, Carr said.

'I think back to Genesis,' he joked, 'in which husband and wife are told to let nothing separate them but the U.S. Army.'

Then becoming more serious, Carr added, 'God means for us to be together as families. This separation creates an unnatural act.'

Assisting the men and women as they deal with separation anxiety and the fears and struggles that come from combat stress will fill Carr?s days. In his mission field, he?ll point to God?s presence and offer Christ to anyone in need. 'My job,' he said, 'is to offer people the peace that passes all understanding and joy never-ending.'

On the home front, Carr, who is pastor of Grace UMC in Hagerstown, will leave his wife and five children, ages 11-32. 'They are the most precious to me,' he said. He is certain the congregation will provide solace. He also knows keeping in touch on a regular basis, as well as constant prayer, is essential.

When he traveled to Bosnia with the military in 1996, Carr felt like he 'had entered, the ?Land of the Living Dead.? People?s faces were empty,' he said. 'The evil from the atrocities that had been committed there had spilt into the ground.'

'There was a darkness there,' Carr said. But in one isolated moment, near a little monastery, Carr stopped by a waterfall that was 'trickling into a stream' and the first flowers of spring had begun to bloom.

'I felt God then,' he said. 'In that new life in the midst of death, God was there.'

Carr picked one of the flowers and pressed it between the pages of his Bible. His wife still has it. 'It just being there was a kind of grace in the midst of despair,' he said.

Carr hopes his presence also provides opportunities for grace to the men and women serving in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Jeffrey Hays, a United Methodist from the Washington East District, will be serving as Carr?s chaplain?s assistant. 'He?s a man of strong spiritual character. Our United Methodist team will make a real difference,' Carr said.

Members of Carr?s church have agreed to help him in his new mission field, and Carr is hopeful the people of the Baltimore-Washington Conference might also become involved in this ministry.

He plans to send dispatches, listing specific needs, back to the Cumberland-Hagerstown District office.

'People of faith want to do something,' said Carr. 'I hope to find things that can be done.'

Currently, Carr said, several area churches are participating in 'Partners in Care,' an initiative of the Maryland National Guard?s chaplain?s office, that provides for the needs of family members of deployed service members.

Not too long ago, Carr was considering retiring from the National Guard. 'I had come to that point in my life,' he said. 'But then this mission came up,' and he felt God?s call.

'My call hasn?t changed. It?s still to relieve the despairing,' Carr said. 'I?ve always tried to be obedient to God?s call. I?m prepared to answer.'