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GUESTS
& LINKS
Major
Keith Cameron
Major Keith Cameron graduated from the
Canadian Royal Military College in 1995 with a Bachelor’s
degree in Civil Engineering. Upon graduation, he completed his final
military engineer officer training in Chilliwack, British Columbia. In
1996, he was posted to 21 Engineer Regiment (UK) in Osnabruck, Germany
as the Plant Troop Commander. During this period, he served twice in
Bosnia, first in Tomislavgrad, serving as Squadron Operations Officer
as part of the NATO Implementation Force and second in Gornji Vakuf,
serving as Support Troop Commander as part of the NATO Stabilization
Force.
He was posted to the Canadian Forces
School of Military Engineering in Gagetown, New Brunswick in 1998. Over
three years in the School, he served as a tactics instructor and then
school operations officer. During this period, he completed the Land
Forces Staff Course and the Land Forces Command and Staff Course.
In 2001, he was posted to 2 Combat
Engineer Regiment in Petawawa, Ontario as the operations officer. He
was promoted to his current rank in March 2003, and assumed command of
24 Field Squadron. He deployed to Afghanistan on Operation Athena Roto
0 for six months in August 2003, commanding 99 soldiers and was
responsible for mobility and protection tasks, including route and area
opening and clearances, mine tracking, explosive ordnance disposal,
improvised explosive device disposal and heavy equipment support to 3rd
Battalion The Royal Canadian Regiment.
Major Cameron married Heather in 1998.
They were happily married for almost 8 years, loving life together and
raising three children now aged eight, five and three. Taken from this
life by an exceptionally aggressive and rare blood infection, Heather
and her unborn daughter Emily went to be with the Lord on 12 March,
2005. Major Cameron and his children currently reside close to family
in south-western Ontario where he serves as regular force Deputy
Commanding Officer of 31 Combat Engineer Regiment, a reserve unit based
in St. Thomas, Ontario.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Search me, O God, and know
my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any
offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139: 16, 23-24
Captain
Mark Peebles
Captain Mark A. Peebles is the Captain
of the Combined Task Force AEGIS in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Gada
Mohammad Faez
Gada is a Settlement Counsellor at the
K-W Reception Centre. He is a former Professor from the Kabul
University in Afghanistan.
Mira
Malidzanovic
refugee@bellnet.ca
Mira is the Programme Director at the
K-W Reception Centre.
Henry Motta
www.necf.ca
Henry Motta is the Pastor of
Connection Ministries at the North Edmonton Christian Fellowship.
The 300 person congregation from North
Edmonton Christian Fellowship were stirred by the news of Canadian
soldiers rescuing a young Afghan boy named Namatullah. But they didn't
stop there. Namatullah had a large tumor on his face but through the
efforts of their church and input from the local community, $18, 000
was raised to provide palliative care for Namatullah. Sadly, Namatullah
passed away after just one chemotherapy treatment as his body was
battling an infection and fever.
A boy's desperate call for Cdn. help
in Kandahar
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/
CTVNews/20060218/afghan_feature_060218?s
_name=&no_ads =
Edmonton church rallies behind dying Afghan boy
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/
CTVNews/20060219/afghan_donations_
060219?s_name=&no_ads =
Heather Mercer & Dayna
Curry
Copyright 2001 Religion News Service.
Article written by Marcia Davis, Religion News writer- taken from
Ambassadors Speakers Bureau website WACO, Texas -- "It's not
the Taliban that put us in prison," Afghanistan aid worker Heather
Mercer told a crowd of almost 4,000 gathered at Baylor University to
celebrate the Waco homecoming for her and Dayna Curry. Rather, said
Mercer, the jailing was a part of God's plan to share His love all over
the world. "We came back to a different nation, a stronger nation, a
more desperate nation. People are asking, `Why are we here? People are
turning to God," she said. While the two Shelter Now International
relief workers were captive in Afghanistan -- charged with breaking
Muslim law by teaching Christianity - America suffered attacks
on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, then began its military
campaign against Afghanistan and its ruling Taliban government. Mercer,
25, and Curry, 30, both graduates of Baylor University and members of
the Antioch Community Church in Waco, were released last month as Kabul
fell to Northern Alliance and American forces. Curry described
returning to a "changed world where people who don’t know God
are talking about Him, and where Christians are realizing that when we
get together and pray, stuff happens!" "If people hadn’t
prayed we wouldn’t be here," Mercer added. "A modern-day
miracle" was how Curry described the impact of their capture and
release. Curry said they spent two days in the home of a Northern
Alliance commander before their dramatic helicopter evacuation by U.S.
special forces. She said they were arrested in August as they left a
home where they had shown "for the first time" a video of the filmed
drama "Jesus." The Taliban also found in their belongings, she said, a
children\s book about Jesus. Mercer said they shared with the family
"on our own time, separate from the agency. Relief and development was
our job, Christianity our lifestyle. "To us we were not breaking the
law. Religion is a top priority in their culture; Jesus is one of their
prophets. They asked, we shared; they shared. We didn’t feel
we were doing anything wrong." Mercer spoke of being "immobilized by
fear," of a "determined faith" – an ongoing choice to trust
God or herself -- and of being "changed forever." She said in her
darkest hours, Jesus became her best friend. "Sometimes I trusted God
and I would find peace, and sometimes I trusted me and things were a
mess." Mercer said when she finally gave her life to God, "If I die,
I\ll die for You, and if I live, I\ll live for You," she gained her
life and her freedom. "Even if we had died in prison, God would still
be good." The women appeared healthy, rested and bright-eyed, and
flashed big smiles. The audience responded with cheers, applause,
laughter and tears as the young women tag-teamed their talks. Mercer
was the more serious of the two; Curry sometimes rolled her eyes and
broke into laughter as she joked about the long prison days. The event
included a welcome by Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. and a dance
drama depicting the real-life one. Seated in the audience before they
took the stage, the two women joined the crowd in some of the worship
songs they sang in prison. Antioch Community Church\s senior pastor
Jimmy Siebert sat with them at a press conference earlier Saturday and
introduced them to a welcome-home crowd as "women of impeccable
character and integrity." The women said the Afghan people who guarded
them during their captivity told them being kicked out of the country
would be the worst thing that would happen to them. "It\s their culture
to only tell you the good. We didn\t realize we could have been
sentenced to death," Curry said. There were "a thousand miracles in
those three days," Curry said of their last days in captivity. She said
they heard loud beating on the prison door and they were afraid to come
out. Then "angry Taliban men" ushered them into the back of a van "and
we were smushed all together on top of rocket launchers." "We thought
we were going to be killed. ... We were all so down, so sad. Then," she
said, "Heather got out her flashlight and started reading scriptures,
and we began singing, laughing in joy." Curry described hearing gunfire
the next day from a Ghazni prison and watching "complete mayhem" out
the window with the Taliban running in all directions and the ground
shaking under her feet from the bombing. Then 30 minutes of quietness
broken by a "violent banging outside" and a man running in wildly
yelling, "`You're free! You're free!" "It was the most amazing
experience of my life," Curry added, "to see the country liberated from
fear and oppression." Since their release they have been showered with
media attention and speaking invitations, have met with President Bush
and have been plied for autographs. Curry told the news conference that
proceeds from a CD of worship songs the women sang while in prison and
a book they plan to write will all be given to Afghanistan. She said
they had just signed with a Nashville agency, Ambassador, to manage
these projects, media and public speaking opportunities. "My heart and
home are in Afghanistan, and I want to be a part of the rebuilding,"
Mercer said. She said she wanted to use her current prominence to keep
Afghanistan at the forefront of the public conscience. She said she
felt love for the Muslim people. "Most of them are just like us,
looking for hope for their future."
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