Reverend Brett Maddocks leads St. Luke's evangelism ministry. He said their congregation has gained a few more members during the BRAC process. Rev. Maddocks said, “About ten. That's our best estimate. This issue with that is every time someone comes in and visits or joins the church they don't always tell us if they are here with BRAC or transferring from another base or whatever.”
The church is running a radio commercial encouraging newly relocated military families to come see what they have to offer. When the families do arrive, the reverend said they are full of questions.
Rev. Maddocks said, “For a lot of these families it has to do with kids and school. So we have, St. Luke's school our ELC, early learning center program for them and our preschool as well. So a lot of it varies from family to family and from person to person.”
Ann McDuffie, the headmaster and principal at St. Luke School said 4 new BRAC students are now on their roster.
Despite the BRAC population not leading up to what it was originally intended to be, Reverend Maddocks said he hopes a community orientation scheduled on post next month, will be fruitful.
Reverend Maddocks said, “We have always been a church that has had great outreach to Fort Benning. We love our military, we support our military 100% and we have always wanted to be a welcoming church for the military and anyone else for that matter.”
With the new numbers dropping, overall the biggest dip comes in the number of permanent soldiers themselves.
The Army initially thought it would take 3,255 permanent-party soldiers and 1,007 civilians to staff the new armor school.
Those numbers have dropped to just over 2,300 soldiers. That's nearly 900 people short and 750 civilians instead of just over 1,000.
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