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Most people don’t feel like singing when they are in the midst of a tough spiritual battle. But when Army Sgt. Nijel Rawlins was deployed in Baghdad to train Iraqi soldiers, he wrote and recorded his own album of praise music. It became part of his dynamic Christian witness on the front lines of the war.

 

A talented vocalist and saxophone player, Rawlins joined the Army after high school and became a Christian after he was sent to the Middle East in 1990 during the Gulf War. Later, when he was sent to Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, he took his laptop, microphone and sax with him and set up a makeshift studio.

“I wrote 10 songs while I was there—almost one song a month—and remarkably they were all about God’s love. It was like God was telling me that He had me over there [in Iraq] and that His love would protect me,” Rawlins says.

 

And Rawlins did experience God’s miraculous protection. Once, when he was traveling to an Iraqi base camp, his superiors made a last-minute change in his seat assignment and moved him from one military vehicle to another. Five minutes into the journey, a bomb exploded right next to the Hummer he was originally assigned to ride in.

 

Says Rawlins: “Guess where it exploded? Right where I was supposed to have been seated. No one could explain why I had been moved, but I am glad I did. Praise God that His angels are watching over me!”

 

The 37-year-old father of three sons says his faith in Christ has grown during this conflict. While in Iraq, he prayed more, read his Bible more and received a divine call to preach the gospel. And he has shared the gospel with fellow soldiers, many of whom reclaimed their Christian faith after being deployed.