Faces:

St. Nick's helper

Mom fills 700 stockings for Marines

Mom. Hi. I love you. Send more.

That brief message, which Vicky Mohler received from her son Aaron stationed in Iraq, may not sound like much. But it ignited a ministry—Support America’s Armed Forces.

Those words of thanks came three years ago in response to a care package Mohler sent to her son, serving in the Marine’s 9th Communication Battalion from Camp Pendleton in California.

Vicky Mohler supervises volunteers filling care packages for deployed troops, an ongoing project of Support America’s Armed Forces. She started the organization as a Christmas project.

Mohler, a member of Grace Lutheran Church, Des Moines, Wash., got the idea to send Christmas stockings to all members of the battalion. “I was asked if I knew how many men that was. I guessed about 50. Try 700. But I said ‘yes.’ My husband asked, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ I didn’t, but God has a way of guiding you and providing miracles when you need them.”

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