Recognizing that tsunami survivors are suffering not just physically but emotionally, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church offered a two-day trauma training seminar to pastors and chaplains in four countries in Southern Asia beginning Jan. 19. 

Martin Feldbush, director of the world church’s Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries (ACM), was accompanied by his wife Martha, an academic language therapist who works with children, and Jonathan Catolico, director of ACM for the church in Southern Asia.

“In these countries pastors face the daunting task of ministering to a large number of traumatized people in hospitals and schools,” said Feldbush. He contacted Catolico right after the tsunami hit and discussed the evident need for getting “Pastoral Trauma Response and Grief Ministries” training in motion. 

He said one pastor told him the training was not only for people that they would help, but also for themselves because they had lived through the same tragedy.

“Sixty percent of the people that died were adults,” He noted, “which means thousands were left as orphans, grieving the loss of siblings and parents.”

Workshop participants discussed the nature of trauma, the nature of loss and grief, how “trauma memories” can last for years, and learned pastoral methodologies for counseling trauma victims.

Methods taught in the workshops were developed by the National Organization for Victim Assistance and are equally applicable to clergy persons from any faith group, said Feldbush. “The form it takes will always be infused with the faith of the person doing spiritual care because it recognizes the value of each person’s faith as part of adaptive and coping skills,” he said.

The four workshops trained a total of nearly 200 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. In Penang, Malaysia, trainings included Baptist, Roman Catholic and Methodist pastors. While Singapore was not affected by the tsunami, Adventist Community Services in that country have been providing aid to victims in other countries.

The workshops were a collaboration between the local and world church’s chaplaincy departments, local churches and Penang Adventist Hospital.