Seminar aims to help faith-based ministries reach out to returning vets

Seminar aims to help faith-based ministries reach out to returning vets
WBRC News
By Alan Collins
Posted: Jul 19, 2013

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC)
A meeting is set for Auburn in August to get the faith-based community involved in helping returning veterans.

A seminar will be sponsored by Governor Robert Bentley's Office of Faith-Based and Volunteer Service.

"We got 2,000 returning veterans coming into our state and we really think they have various issues. Sometimes it's PTSD or just re-entry issues," Jon Mason, Director of Faith-Based and Volunteer Service, said.

It's estimated that 4,000 of the 400,000 returning veterans are affected by post-traumatic stress syndrome and of that number five percent are contemplating suicide.
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Over 30 years ago I began to walk a path that will only end the day I die. If someone asked me when I planned to end this work, I would have expressed the hope that I would return to "normal" life after ten years. Back then I thought if I could figure all this out, so could everyone else and there would be no need for my efforts.

Then it was a matter of the internet taking off. Thousands of veterans started telling their stories online and so did their families. You'd think that would have been enough but as we've seen in the deadly results of suicides and attempted suicides, it doesn't even come close. There is too much disinformation confusing too many.

For as long as I've been doing this, Point Man International Ministries has been there as well. I am very proud to be State Coordinator of Florida for this group. Point Man Ministries, PTSD Moral Code Talkers is based on what Point Man has been doing since 1984.

Researchers are finally understanding the spiritual aspect of PTSD and the moral injury. What they have yet to understand is that there are as many types of PTSD as there are causes and no one size fits all answer. For the combat veterans PTSD is much different. The only thing that comes close is law enforcement because their profession deals with the use of force in order to protect others. For the war fighters, they must use force for the same outcome and that is what causes the deepest level of PTSD. They were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others but dealing with the results was not in their training manuals. It is in their souls.

On Wounded Times there are over 100 posts on spiritual healing. None of this is new. It is as old as the days when King David wrote in Psalms about the spiritual battles he had to fight. Healing PTSD must include the spiritual part of the war fighter or it will not work to heal. It may get them by from one day to the next but as we have seen, the results are prolonging suffering instead of healing.

If you are able to attend this conference or any in your area, make sure you go so you can learn what has been forgotten about all these years. If you want to really help veterans heal, it has to begin inside where it all started. In my ministering to veterans and their families I suggest The Robe, epic movie on healing Combat PTSD because it covers just about everything veterans are going through and it came out in 1953. It has survivor guilt, flashbacks, hearing things, love, compassion, forgiveness and above all, healing the souls.


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