On-Call Support to District Family

By David Martin

District family,

All of us can say that these last few years have been stressful in many, many ways. Over time that takes its toll on us as caregivers. Self-care for many is considered to be selfish with but nothing could be farther from the truth. I have spent the last decade of my 40+ years of ministry as a hospital chaplain. I retired right before Covid hit but because I had training in “critical incident stress management”,  I was asked to come back and help the staff manage some of the stress that they were dealing with. Many felt isolated, disconnected and many others were feeling hopeless. When we fail to address these things over time we can become forgetful, have trouble sleeping, become more susceptible to illness that feeling of things being out of control and even experience a crisis of faith.

Within our district family there a number of us who are licensed clinical chaplains and we want to be available to our district family of workers to help you in anyway processing some of the stress and difficulties that have weighed on you over these past few years. Chaplains are uniquely trained to listen, to support and hear the things that you are dealing with without judgment. We are also aware that some of your spouses may have also carried this along with you and they too they need a place to process.

Therefore, we want to make ourselves available to our district family To provide you with a listening ear and a helping hand. If you would like to access our chaplains, please email me and we will get you set up with someone as soon as possible. Our DS initiated  this in reaching out to us and is very supportive of this effort to come alongside our brethren. Your conversations with your Chaplains are confidential.

My email is: davidevansmartin@gmail.com, you may reach me by text or phone at 757-676-4989.