Frontline - West Point and Charles Gray

Having graduated from West Point just seven years prior to Molly's and my arrival to serve as Navigators at my alma mater, I well remembered how distracted and off-balance a cadet can be. As cadets we lived in near oblivion to the world outside our gates in our struggle to survive the four years. Five hours of sleep a night felt like the norm for many cadets throughout each of their eight semesters here.

A Navigator serving at a place like this can easily grow frustrated. These are such sharp people. Why does their spiritual growth proceed at what feels like such a glacial pace? I well remember that I didn't have much of a spiritual pulse for nearly three years while hanging out with the ministry here; I came to know Jesus at the end of my junior year.

I had only begun my walk with Him by the time I graduated from West Point. It was The Navigators at my first assignment who helped me continue my spiritual journey. It was their interest in me as a person that led me to join The Navigators full-time fifteen years ago.

I am seeing a similar story unfold in the life of a 1997 West Point graduate, Charles Gray. Charles, like me, was a civil engineering major (read: zero free time; drowning in academia; chained to his desk or to a computer in an engineering lab.) I met with Charles and his best friend, Steve, also a civil engineering major, through their last three years here. My most vivid memories of Charles are of seeking to draw him into casual conversation several times upon seeing him walking across North area or Thayer Road. After thirty seconds­and I'm not exaggerating here­ Charles would say with genuine apology, Mark, I would really like to chat with you for a while (and I knew he meant it!), but civil is eating my lunch, and I need to get going.

I had only seen Charles begin to grow spiritually in those years at West Point, but God had a plan. Charles and a classmate, Paul Oh, were posted together to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. When I visited them to attend Paul's wedding in 1999, I was pleased to see Charles had made some progress on his spiritual journey because of Paul and our full-time staff on Oahu, Roy and Debbie Garren. Two other West Point graduates, Adam and Greg, each from the class of 1998, would later join them. The relationship with the Garrens was critical to the further development of these developing laborers.

Charles has since moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to command an engineer company, and he will soon post to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in September, where he looks forward to meeting several of our 2005 graduates who will be going through their Officer Basic Course. Charles becomes a pivot point for these 2nd Lts. as they proceed toward the goal: life-time laborers.

[Mark and Molly Schake have answered the call to move to Hawaii and lead our ministry there. Mark will focus primarily on the Army Post at Schofield Barracks helping young officers like Paul Oh and Charles Gray find their way as lifetime laborers.]