Dear Health Ministries Network Community,

I hope you enjoy this first monthly edition of the renewed newsletter. Special thanks to Sampson, our communications consultant, who spearheaded the new design and format. I think you will enjoy the new content, which includes: volunteer spotlight, volunteer bulletin board, events, book of the month, and a devotion.

Thank you also to the 25+ volunteers and community members who joined us in September for our fall Kick Off. It was wonderful to meet many of you and learn more about your individual congregations. In addition to a listening session with Marie Eaton of the Aging Well Initiative, Sue Sharpe of the Chuckanut Health Foundation joined us and stated her firm belief in the transformative power of your health ministry service. I agree, and continue to feel honored to support that work.

As we find our footing as a new nonprofit, I'm interested in hearing from you and hope you'll help inform the future of Health Ministries Network by responding to our short survey by October 12, 2018. Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Warmly,

Amelia Vader
Executive Director

Volunteer Spotlight
Jeanne Brotherton, RN, BSN, FCN

What is your name?

Jeanne Brotherton

What is your title?

I am an RN. I have a BSN from UW, and I'm trained as a Faith Community Nurse.

What positions do you currently hold related to health ministry?

I don't really hold an official position right now within HMN, although I am working as an educational mentor and consultant to keep our Foundations in Faith Community Nursing program going. I also work as an FCN in my own faith community at First Congregational Church in Bellingham.

How long have you been practicing nursing?

I have been a nurse since 1975, 43 years.

How long have you been practicing health ministry?

I'm a relative newcomer in terms of how long this program has been going in our community; it's been about 10 years.

How does your nursing background interact with health ministry?

Do you have a story of when your involvement in health ministry made an impact?

I think one of the things about faith community nursing that is emblematic of all nursing care is that it's not the dramatic moments of life, necessarily, that are the most telling. It's the small moments of life. Often, as a faith community nurse, it's the smallest things we do that people most appreciate.

Just recently, for example, I was doing blood pressures at our church on a Sunday and I started talking with someone who told me a little bit about their medical history. They'd been feeling flutters and wasn't sure exactly what was going on. I took a blood pressure and I listened to their heart and I checked their pulse and I told the person what I noted, which was that the pulse did seem a bit elevated to me. I didn't detect any real obvious problems with that, but I said if this is something you notice it's important that you check in with your physician.

So, about three weeks later the same person came up to me and said, "I am so glad that I saw you that day bece I did call my cardiologist and I ended up going in. I had a serious problem and had a procedure to bring my heart rate and rhythm back to normal." And I said, "Well, I'm very pleased to hear that. How are feeling now?"

It was a small thing, but maybe not. In that person's life it could have turned into a big thing. And sometimes people ignore those signs and say, "Oh well. It's not that bad," and they don't tell anyone. Nurses are the most trusted profession, so people do tend to tell us things. And that was a short interaction; we were together for less than 15 minutes, but it did make a big difference.

What advice do you have for folks that are interested in or new to health ministry?

I would say it's important to read information from people who are already faith community nurses or health ministers about what brought them to that specialty, what gives them joy, and what their path was, bece it's a deeply personal thing. In faith community nursing, it's more about being with someone. Sometimes it's literally sitting with someone and not necessarily saying anything, not really doing anything, but being a presence that says, "I am here just for you." Practicing outside of a medical setting requires a different set of skills and a different set of nursing assumptions, and I think it's good to know about that before you get too far into it. Also, you have to be vulnerable yourself. Rather than the professional relationship in a hospital setting, which can be distant, in faith community nursing there is the personal as well as the professional.

What are you most excited about as HMN moves forward?

I think the education piece has been very important to our program. I guess I'm making an assumption that it would continue to be. But, you know, I don't know. It may be that faith community nurse education becomes much more centralized and people go to sign up with a program and have an online course that's done by someone else. I think we need to be open to new opportunities.

I think more than ever before, what we do needs to be known and appreciated throughout our community. Not just the medical community, but other agencies that have similar missions to ours and may not realize what a hidden, and important opportunity there is among faith community nurses and health ministers to improve the health of our community.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with the network?

Well I guess two things. One is just to acknowledge that all the faith community nurses and health ministers over the last 20 years or so are unsung heroes. They quietly do what needs to be done in their community or in their practice, and most people don't know what they do. However, that doesn't really matter to the nurses bece most nurses are not about the glory. We're about the relationships and the care that we provide for others. But, I think if most people knew how appreciative clients are of what we provide, they might be very surprised.

Second, we have an opportunity to promote ourselves. I kind of made up a mission statement when I was working as education director at HMN. I said our role was to improve the health of our community through intentional care of the bodies, minds, and spirits of those we serve. And I think that sums up what health ministry is about. It's not just about taking care of the bodies, it's not just about minds and thoughts and emotions, but it's also about that deep part of each one of us that wants to be loved, cared for, connected, and be the best person we can be.

Upcoming Events

HMN monthly meeting
Friday, October 19th, 11am - 1pm
First Congregational Church of Bellingham
2401 Cornwal Ave, Bellingham, WA
This interactive meeting will be facilitate by board chair Joni Hensley and will include barinstorming of how to fulfill the goals outlined in our grants. Carol Nicolay will showcase the new Care Transitions Toolkit.

Daily Dying: The Gateway to Living Well
Friday, October 19th, 7pm - 9pm
Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, 1207 Ellsworth St, Bellingham, WA 98225
In this community conversation, Dr. Ravi Ravindra will help us explore how holding an understanding of our own mortality can enrich our living.

Infection Control: Break the Chain
Friday, October 26th, 8:30am - 4pm
St. Luke's Health Education Center
3333 Squalicum Parkway Bellingham, WA. 98225
Whatcom County Health Department Infection Control Task Force is hosting a conference with experts who will speak on relevant infection control topics.

Whatcom CHWN monthly meeting
Friday, October 26th, 9am - 11am
Location TBA
The Whatcom Community Health Worker Network meets on the 4th Friday of the month. Please join us! For details about upcoming meetings, minutes from past meetings, and information on community health workers, please visit http://whatcomalliance.org/chw/

Book Review by Carol Nicolay,
who recommends Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Being Mortal, by physician and surgeon, Atual Gawande, is a call for a radical shift in handling end of life healthcare. Gawande writes that members of the medical profession, including himself, have been wrong about focusing on disease process and offering increasingly difficult treatment options in waning months, weeks or days of life.

The author is suggesting that doctors need to think more about what matters most to those in their care and help people achieve a level of independence and control as the end of life comes into view. To that end, Being Mortal offers a practical and helpful conversation guide for doctors and health professionals to explore the patient's goals, fears or worries, critical abilities and tradeoffs to maintain these abilities as long as possible.

This book will change your interactions with members of your congregation with serious illness. I'm reading it again for the third time.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Psalm 23 is so familiar to many of us, its use can almost seem clichéd at times. When I was still in active ministry I would often seek other scriptures to speak of God's care for us. After all, the scriptures contain many beautiful words of comfort and encouragement. Yet, there is something so comforting in the familiar heart-worn words some of us learned in childhood when all around us is chaos, turned upside down, when we long for what is lost. A friend recently commented on how comforting the familiar words of this Psalm are for them. Perhaps the question is not which scripture we choose, but what brings us close to God? How do we connect with Spirit in our lives, and with those with whom we work? In this corner of the world, with creation's abundant beauty all around us, it can simply be a walk in the woods, or by the sea, working in the garden, or gazing at the stars at night, appreciating the miracle of God's handiwork. For others who may prefer more structure, it can be a quiet sanctuary with scripture and prayer books or kneeling in a favorite place of prayer. Many of us find our spirits touched by music while in the midst of community or family, or simply by silence. Simplest of all is merely breathing, gently breathing in the presence of the Spirit into our bodies, inviting the Spirit into our souls, into our being. From Thich Nhat Hanh I learned the practice of breath prayers as I walk. Our faith is lived out in movement back and forth between us and God in the midst of our days. It has been said this is a movement "between God's continual grace and our continual response." This response is often in action, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, working for justice. There are as many ways to experience God's Spirit in our lives as there are people. In whatever form we experience Spirit, it is from this experience we grow in love, a very personal love for ourselves to hold close in our hearts, and a love to take out into the world to share with others. In this way, we are able to care for others, by nurturing ourselves, refreshing our spirits, so we have a well of love to share when life is it's most challenging. We rely on far more than our own skills. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, the Psalmist tells us. This is how we have the courage to be change agents for our communities, as faith community nurses, health ministers, and health advocates. "May your work bring you true joy and deep satisfaction, welcoming you home to the depth of your heart." (John O'Donohue)

HEALTH MINISTRY CLASSIFIEDS

The HMN classifieds allow anyone to share relevant information with the network. Email you own classified request to sampson@healthministriesnetwork.net.

HMN seeking Course Coordinator
Posted by Health Ministries Network Health Ministries Network (HMN) in Bellingham WA is looking for a dynamic, experienced part-time nurse educator to prepare Faith Community Nurses (FCN) and Health Ministers (HM) for positions in local congregations and community organizations.

Free Education and Advice for Congregants with Hearing Needs
Posted by Aleen Warren 360-647-0910 or email bellingham@hsdc.org Joel Bergsbaken, Program Coordinator at the Bellingham Hearing, Speech, and Deaf Center can provide education and advice for selecting and utilizing appropriate technology for congregants with hearing needs. This is a free service and I highly recommend that you contact this man -- he is wonderful!

What is a community health worker?
Posted by Whatcom Alliance for Health Advancement The American Public Health Association defines a community health worker as "... a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served." But what does this really mean to us in our work in Whatcom County? Learn more about the monthly Community Health Worker meeting on the fourth Friday of the month.

Health Ministries Network is a nonprofit serving Northwest Washington. Our mission is to link faith community nurses, congregations, community organizations and hospital resources to serve our community by promoting preventative health care, social justice and spiritual well being.

Health Ministries Network is fiscally sponsored by the Chuckanut Health Foundation.