In a 15-day period, nearly 300 chaplains from eight nations in the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Southern Asia-Pacific region gathered for communications and crisis counseling training, a first for the church region.
In a 15-day period, nearly 300 chaplains from eight nations in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Southern Asia-Pacific region gathered for communications and crisis counseling training, a first for the church region.
The interactive seminars brought together hospital, college and church chaplains as well as pastoral participants from the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam in five separate venues: three in the Philippines and one each for Southeast Asia and Indonesia, Aug. 25 to Sept. 10.
“We are so impressed with the response of our field [local] pastors that seminars on ministering to the bereaved and resolving conflicts are so important in their ministry,” says Richard Stenbakken, director of the church’s Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries for the world church. He and associate director, Martin Feldbush, provided resources for the seminars.
Stenbakken stressed that the seminars were not “just lectures,” but featured a lot of participation by delegates: “People got involved with doing exercises that were part of the communications process. They then agreed to teach this to someone else within two weeks of the seminar.”
“We were greatly helped by the subjects on ‘communicating skillfully in congruent and caring ways; resolving conflicts and managing anger better; and developing collaborative operating system for couples;’ and we want these taught also to all our leaders and pastors in our territory,” says Elisha Gultom, ACM director for West Indonesia.
“This is a long-overdue seminar for pastors and we thank the leadership for bringing this to us,” adds Donald Zabala, chaplain for the church in central Philippines.
It is envisioned that by 2005, every church pastor within the Southern Asia-Pacific region will have the opportunity to attend a seminar/workshop on “Caring and Communicating in Crisis.” Stenbakken says plans are being made for future trips to the region.
