'Faith Warriors:' Video of Marines Delivering Powerful Rendition of Christian Worship Song 'Days of Elijah' Goes Viral
A powerful video of nearly 500 U.S. Marines at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California declaring "there is no God like Jehovah" in an inspirational rendition of the Christian worship song "Days of Elijah," is taking the Internet by storm.
Merrie Pardee Baldwin, the Christian volunteer who first posted the video of the worshipful Marines to her Facebook page Sunday, told The Christian Post in an interview Friday that she is hoping the video inspires Americans to pray for the Marines, many of whom are worried about the situation with ISIS in the Middle East.
"I'm really happy that this video has gone viral, but the thing that I'm hoping for is that I want people to pray for our troops. That's my intention. I want more people praying for our troops because there is so much bad news in the media that I want people seeing something positive," she continued.
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"We do prayer request cards with them and the majority of them are very concerned with ISIS right now," she added.
Merrie is a member of the Arbor Christian Fellowship Church in Lake Forest, California, and has been volunteering at Camp Pendleton worship services every second Sunday of each month with her husband, Jim, for the last two years. The services, billed "Faith Warriors," are held every Sunday night.
She explained that the video was taken last Sunday. In the video the Marines sing the words of the song in unison while raising their hands in praise and shouting "Oorah!" at points.
Merrie said the idea to volunteer for the worship services is a spinoff of a Christmas activity they used to conduct on the base.
"My church, we used to go down to camp Pendleton at Christmas. We had an AWANA program (like Christian version of Boys and Girls Club) at our church. We would go down there and bring presents at Christmas for the guys in a company called LIMA Company. These were Marines that had been injured during training," she said.
"We would bring care packages just to cheer them up. And the kids and my husband and I loved going down there, so we asked what's something else that we could do, and we found out that they had this service every Sunday night called Faith Warriors. We were assigned the second Sunday of the month," Merrie explained.
Since getting the opportunity to help, Merrie, who works in federal law enforcement and whose father was in the Air Force, has taken the opportunity to help very seriously.
"Every second Sunday we go down and the Saturday before I bake thousands of cookies. So I bring cookies with me because most of the guys are homesick and missing their moms or wives," she said.
"I give them a bag of cookies and we have the church service, and my husband and I stand at the back and we are just there available if they need counselling or just want to talk to somebody 'cause they are homesick or to pray with them," Merrie shared.
"For me, I'm a military brat. My dad was in the Air Force, and I work in federal law enforcement for the Treasury Department; and for me it's just a way to say 'thank you' to those guys," she said.
"The sacrifices they are making to serve our country kinda blows me away, and so I'm humbled when I get to say thank you," she added.
