“We are counting down the days until our upcoming mobilization for deployment to Kosovo,” says Maury Millican, a U.S. Army chaplain. “We have been resetting, reorganizing, retraining since our redeployment from Iraq in 2005.”

Chaplain Major Millican’s unit, the 141st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, will command the multinational peace-keeping mission to Kosovo, an eastern European country with a population that is 90 percent Albanian Muslim and 10 percent Serbian Christian. For nearly three decades, the country has experienced political upheaval related to its quest for independence from Serbia; Kosovo declared its independence in 2008.

“Kosovo marks the ancient geographic, ethnic, and cultural boundary between Islam and Christianity,” says Millican. “We are the U.S. Army’s twelfth rotation to Kosovo since 1999, teaching the two dominant ethnic-religious groups to live together in peace.” As brigade chaplain, Millican is responsible for the commander’s religious support program along with three other chaplains and four chaplain assistants.

When Millican is not on active duty, he pastors Bismarck Community Church in Bismarck, North Dakota. “In my absence as senior pastor, the consistory has called Rev. Al Schut to be the interim pastor,” Millican says. “The congregation has been amazingly supportive of my second deployment as an army chaplain. Once again, they are prepared to give up their pastor to full-time military service for the sake of others.” A community send-off was held in Bismarck in July, and in August the congregation celebrated the Lord’s Supper with both Millican and Schut before Millican left for final training. His unit will arrive in Kosovo later this fall and remain there for one year.

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