Air force Academy!

    This was our last day with the Heldenbrands, and they just headed off to Denver to visit more friends. Before they left, this morning, Luke, Ben, and I joined the guys for a trip to the Air force Academy. It covers over 18,000 acres, and we only saw some of what is open to the public.
     The coolest part was definitely the Cadet Chapel. I got some good pictures, and the ones you see are from the Protestant Chapel, which is upstairs, and the Jewish chapel which is on the lower level. The majority of Cadets that go there to worship fall into the Protestant category, and so that part is the largest; due to the mix of faiths, there are also Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist chapels, as well as a couple multi-faith rooms on the lower level. It's encouraging to know that the Academy recognizes spiritual growth is crucial to producing strong and balanced officers, and that they still support religious freedom; at the same time, we need to pray for the Christians on campus, that they would be bold in their witness to their fellow cadets of other religions, as eternal life and forgiveness is only found in Jesus.
      A very interesting part of the Jewish chapel was a handwritten Torah (the one in today's pictures) on display, found after being hidden in World War II. You might think that it was hidden by the Jews to keep it from the Nazis, but in actuality, the opposite was true. It was being saved with other artifacts for after the war, to be put in a museum that would be constructed commemorating the annihilation of all Jewish people. This torah was then given by the Israeli armed forces to the Air force Academy to be put in the Jewish chapel.
      The Protestant Chapel was very beautiful, and in the back, a huge pipe organ filled the loft. Today it is worth over  $2 million, and has thousands of pipes. You can see from the pictures a bit of how massive it is. That's all for now folks!