The Worst Part About Being in a Military Town

When I moved to Columbus, I was told Mt Vernon had a large Air Force community, pulling from Columbus Air Force base nearby. Our base is is a flight training base dominated by student pilots (here for a year and a half) and instructor pilots (here for three to four years).

They’re an amazing group of people. Student pilots are a bunch of post-college kids and newlyweds fresh into the Air Force. They move in packs of 12, are full of fire and life, and bring down the average age of a church by at least a decade. Love them! The instructor pilots and their families are here for three years and are a force of nature. They show up with a ready made family of at least two kids. Many times we’ll help them add 2 more while they’re here (Columbus is a small town, mind you. No other forms of entertainment). When a pilot tells you he/she can do something, they’re understating it. Pilots aren’t mediocre at anything. Some of our best musicians are pilots. Many of the instructor pilots that come looking for a church are solid Christians, already discipled, just looking for a place to plug in and serve. You take those families all day long! You can tell who their kids are: just look for the well-behaved ones that have a majority of the New Testament memorized. They’re that amazing (especially when you line them up next to preacher’s kids or deacon’s kids)! In short, we love our Air Force family and our church wouldn’t be the same without them.

Now I was duly warned when I got here that it would be tough getting attached to military families only to see them move away. My initial thoughts: “that’s three years away, that’s a lifetime!” Well, next month I’ll have been in Columbus for three years, and we’ve seen more than our share of military families transfer out to their next assignment. That’s the worst part about being in a military town: seeing your friends and family move away. You can’t help but get attached to them and love them as your own. And then they leave. Early this morning I got a Facebook message from an instructor pilot and his family moving out of state, wanting to thank me and Mt Vernon for our role in their lives.

It’s heartbreaking and bittersweet. We trust that for one season in their lives we were able to minster to them and they to us. The rest is in God’s hands.