Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Territory Enlargement

Wow! Things are ever- changing in my world of work! As I am waiting to be certified to do the Comprehensive Behavioral Assessments (which has taken quite a while!) I helped out with Children's Case Management over the summer. And what a group of young people! Most of them are fresh out of college and are full of creative ideas.They organized summer fun activites for our families to encourage parent-child interaction and family bonding. Now that this program has ended, I have been approached about starting up a new program working with those who are still affected by the hurricanes of 2004.


The new program is Project Recovery and right now we are looking at it being a one year program. We will be providing counseling and support to hurricanes survivors from 2004 who continue to struggle with issues of grief and loss, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and substance abuse issues among many other issues. We will also be able to go into schools and work with the children and teachers who have been affected to provide counseling and support. It is really sad, but I have heard that the children who experienced trauma surronding the storms still become upset and begin to cry when it begins to rain or storm.

The team will consist of eight people and we will be receiving training on traumatology and crisis intervention. I feel like I will learn so much! My supervisor has done crisis work in Sri Lanka after the Tsnami and plans to do some work in London as well.

We will be the long-term version of Project Hope here in Florida. My supervisor came and asked me to take the team leader position which was quite a surprise to me. They need a licensed person to get the program going and she assured me that I can always come back and do the assessments. All I would need to do would be to train the new person and I could do assessments at any time.

So, I have been praying and asking God what he would have me do. I picked up "The Prayer of Jabez" and turned right to the chapter on Living Large for God~ asking God to enlarge your life so you can make a greater impact for Him. I recalled praying for God to enlarge my territory a while back. OK, Lord I think I am getting the picture! I love unconventional forms of ministry and being out in the community meeting people where they are.

Last year after Hurricane Charley, I got to go out with a crisis team and ended up in a pastor's home whose church had just been destoyed. We got to spend time talking with his wife and when she shared with us about their boys sadness about losing the church we were all in tears. We were able to pray with them before we left and also visited a lady from their church who was a missionary to Haiti. It was so awesome how the Lord led us to people and gave us strength to keep visiting and checking on people.

This will definitely be an adventure but I am ready to learn!
Please keep us in your prayers.

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