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Celebrating Twenty-Five Years Together In Christ
Partners in Care Task Force
At the October 28, 2011 Synod Council meeting Pastor Carl Ames of Christ the King Lutheran in Huntington and Colonel Bruce Reed, State Chaplain of the West Virginia National Guard, presented a plan developed by the Guard called Partners in Care, PIC, that coordinates support for West Virginia National Guard service members and their families through local faith communities. The Council approved the participation of the churches of the Synod in this program and at Bishop Dunkin’s request, Colonel Reed agreed to include the churches that are in the Western Maryland part of our Synod in the plan. The Council set up a Task Force to coordinate this work with the Guard and its members are: Chair – Rev. Carl W. Ames, Rev. Wanda Childs-Ellis, Rev. Dana Holter, Clem Pemberton of Cross of Grace and Charlie Smoot of Christ the King. Clem, Charlie and Carl are also veterans themselves. The Task Force has met several times, some of those with Colonel Reed. A brochure has been developed by the Guard to advertise the program; the Guard has agreed to add all veterans and their families in the Synod to the program and the Guard presented the program at the 2012 Synod Assembly. Pastors Dana Holter, Wanda Childs-Ellis and Carl Ames were also later invited thru Colonel Reed, who is on the Steering Committee of the Coalition, to attend the National Military Child Education Coalition workshop in Charleston that focuses on the needs of military children. The Synod Task Force will represent the Synod in the ongoing work of the Faith group section of the Coalition, which includes Colonel Reed and seeks to draw in many other faith groups also. Pastor Ames was involved with Michigan National Guard while serving a congregation there and was introduced to Colonel Reed by his counterpart in the Michigan National Guard. Once Colonel Reed shared the Guard’s plan here, Pastor Ames asked Bishop Dunkin’s permission to present it along with Colonel Reed to the Council and thus the Oct. 28 Council meeting. Since our organization Rev. Holter has accepted a Call in another Synod and Col. Reed has met with several denominations. We now have 175 churches from various denominations signed up with PIC and cover all but one county in WV. Col. Reed has retired and has moved over to State Family Programs Director position for the Guard and LTC Gary Coffey is the new WV National Guard State Chaplain. Both Gary and Bruce will be working with PIC. The first year was spent informing denominations about the program and getting their approval to share it with their congregations. The second year was contacting those congregations where denominational approval was required and also those that do not have a denominational approval process and getting individual congregations to sign up. This year is on training representatives' from those congregations and beginning to refer those in need to them. There is a multidenominational team that works with the Guard in their process and this Task Force serves on that team.