wfn.org | "TELECARE" MINISTRY PROVING ITS VALUE IN SEPTEMBER 11'S WAKE

[Carol Fouke <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252
Email: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org
NCC10/22/01

"TELECARE" MINISTRY PROVING ITS VALUE IN SEPTEMBER 11'S WAKE

October 22, 2001, SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- A California congregation's
simple, ongoing telephone outreach ministry is helping connect and support
members in the wake of September 11.  The ministry has been especially
meaningful for one of its volunteers, whose New York City-based company lost
87 people when the World Trade Center collapsed.

TeleCare is a program of St. Augustine-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa
Monica.  Every six months for the past three years, TeleCare volunteers have
phoned each of the congregation's 250 member families, and said, "We're just
calling to see how you are and whether there's anything you want us to pray
for," according to Gretchen Haight of Brentwood, Calif.  A hospital
chaplain, she is TeleCare's coordinator.

Two three-member volunteer teams spend one hour one evening a month at the
church, making calls and then praying together for each person contacted,
naming each joy and concern.  TeleCare "is a quiet ministry, but it has
mattered a lot," Mrs. Haight said.  It helps keep St. Augustine's far-flung,
busy urban congregants connected, and people "appreciate the call, often
saying it came just when they needed it."

Since September 11, St. Augustine-by-the-Sea Church has held special
services, sponsored a weekend family retreat - and, on October 10, activated
its fall round of TeleCare calls.  The three-member team "on duty" included
Gretchen Haight and her husband, Peter.

President of the California office of Fiduciary Trust Company, Mr. Haight
had worked on the 94th floor of #2 World Trade Center in New York before
transferring to the Los Angeles office in 1984.  He counts 25 close friends
and colleagues among the company's 87 employees lost when the World Trade
Center collapsed.  560 employees survived.

The three-member TeleCare calling team reached about 40 families in all on
October 10.  "About half the people I talked to knew that I'd lost friends,
and they were asking all about me," Mr. Haight said.  "It was very much a
two-way thing.  I felt supported by them, and I was really glad to be able
to reach out as part of a prayer ministry.  For me, it was very helpful."

Reported Mrs. Haight, "Usually we get an answering machine two times out of
three, but this time, almost everyone was home.  Everyone appreciated the
connection."

The callers discovered that "the events of these past weeks weave in and out
of our personal lives," she said.  For example, one person asked prayers
"for all my friends in New York, and for Grandma, who is in a nursing home,"
Mr. Haight said.  Another, who'd struggled with a heavy workload for a
couple of years, was feeling all the more weighed down by the September 11
crisis.  Others asked prayers for innocent Afghans ? for a friend who'd just
been fired ? for hearts "open to what is occurring day by day."

Dr. Margaret Kornfeld, a pastoral counselor who addressed the National
Council of Churches Executive Board in New York City on October 1, cited
TeleCare as a good example of existing ministry "infrastructure" that
effectively meets needs in extraordinary times.  She urged religious leaders
"to find out what's already working in your communions" and build on it in
response to the current crisis.

Mrs. Haight said she was really glad TeleCare was already well established
before September 11.  "If we had thought now to set up TeleCare, it might
have felt intrusive at worst and odd at best.  In each round of calling
during the past three years, people have become more familiar with it.

"The first time we called, we were explaining what TeleCare was.  Each time,
there has been more acceptance of TeleCare as a way of communicating."  With
the September 11 crisis," she said, "there's been another jump in people's
openness.  They've been broken open by anxiety and needing help, and are
more willing to talk about it and to ask for prayers."

She added, "I don't want people to think it's a really big thing.  It's low
maintenance.  That's the nice part.  It's how I think we ought to live -
checking in with people in your community.  Its beauty is in its total
simplicity and lack of presumption."

-end-