A Fire Chaplain and More !

Many people think of how brave first responders as being brave, and this is one of our most common qualities. At the same time I also often remind people how generous responders are.

Today is an excellent illustration of this. While everyone else is unwrapping presents, and hugging grandma, we stand watch. We sacrifice part of our holiday so others can have carefree enjoyment of theirs. So long as we do so they will never completely understand what we have done for them. We being who we are, do… Continue

Yesterday a local fire photographer sent me some great pictures of the guys from my fire department at the above incident. You can see them on his website here, http://tinyurl.com/mslbwf I was totally bumed that I wasn't on this run. I felt like a caged tiger knowing guys, and gals that I served with and cared about were fighting a fire this size, and I wasn't there. It was in the hottest part of the day, in what has been a historically hot Houston summer. Anyway the pictures are so cool I had t… Continue

According to the last numbers I have 11 schools in our metro area, and 466 schools nationwide have been closed because of probable or confirmed swine flu cases. This includes one school in my own school district about 5miles away.

Growing problem, working parents who are scrambling to find child care for the next week or two. They also have to figure out how to pay the cost of this care, especially in the current economy. I thought of setting up what I call "day shelters." However if we were to… Continue

We are currently experiencing widespread flooding in the Houston Area. According to the last report I saw 20 major road locations are closed due to high water. Houston Fire had to rescue two of their medics and a patient after one of their ambulances became stranded in a a high water intersection just before daybreak.

Katy ISD (my local School District) has canceled classes for the day as have several near by districts here on the western side of our metro area. Several others are starting at l… Continue

I originally wrote this article while serving as Chaplain-General at the Order of St. Isidore of Seville. As first responders we certainly see our share of evil. In fact far too often it gets directed toward us. I hope this article will in some small way help you to handle the evil that you encounter in a way that is consistent with your faith in Christ.

Chaplain Crutchfield

Overcome Evil With Good
By Rev. Robert A. Crutchfield

Overcome evil with good. A nice idea isn’t it? But what does it m… Continue