For soldiers returning from combat, the trauma often continues. How can the church help?
When Frank Vozenilek returned from the Viet Nam war in 1971, he attended a local church where, from the pulpit, the pastor called him a murderer (Vozenilek was a medic and never killed anyone). Vozenilek vowed he’d never set foot in a church again, a promise he kept for 15 years while dealing with major problems with post-traumatic stress disorder issues, including two failed marriages.
Since coming from Viet Nam in 1970, combat veteran James Knudsen has suffered from PTSD, long-term unemployment and severe depression. In 1999, his wife had a Vet Center counselor take him to the Iowa City Veterans Hospital just before she divorced him after 20 years of marriage. James regularly attends church and has a personal relationship with God.
Both Knudsen and Vozenilek now minister in the Cedar Rapids/Marion, Iowa, area and are committed to assisting churches help veterans with PTSD.
“The church dropped the ball on us,” says Vozenilek. “We cannot afford to drop the ball on this generation.”
A call to action
To be fair, PTSD wasn’t fully recognized until 1984, well after Viet Nam. Today, it’s a well-known condition in which reactions to a traumatic or life-threatening event continually recur or even intensify, even after the danger is past. The main symptoms include traumatic memories/nightmares, hypervigilance, anxiety, emotional detachment, depression, avoidance of crowds or anything associated with the event. It often leads to substance abuse, chronic unemployment and homelessness. The suicide rate among those with PTSD is almost twice the national average, and two out of three of their marriages fail.
Though studies show that nearly one in five returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD, but experts say the numbers are likely much higher since many veterans deny having it either because they don’t recognize it, or they worry it could harm or end their military careers. Reported wartime PTSD cases jumped roughly 50 percent in 2007. Yet only about 30 percent of those reporting they have PTSD go to the Veterans Affairs hospitals or centers for help.
In The Combat Trauma Healing Manual, used by Bridges to Healing, Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry, Chris Adsit points out that a large percentage of troops serving in the current war are National Guard and Reservists, which means they don’t stay attached to their bases for very long.
“We have wounded warriors scattered all over our country, infiltrating all of our society,” Adsit says. “There is only one other entity that infiltrates all of our society, and that is the Church. The government resources are already overwhelmed. If the church doesn’t step up and come to the aid of these men and women, I really don’t see much hope for these heroes.”
After Andrea Westfall’s 10-month deployment with the Oregon Army National Guard in 2002-03, she began showing symptoms of PTSD but didn’t seek help, and was not diagnosed until she had been home a year. Looking for answers to her questions about God, Westfall turned to the leadership at Springfield Faith Center in Springfield, Ore.
“I was told that if I began presenting issues related to ‘war,’ I would have to go to the VA,” she says. “I was already going to the Vet Center for PTSD! What I needed was for someone to walk through this new spiritual journey I found myself in and not to be judged, condemned or thrown safe ‘pat answers.’”
Westfall tried several other churches in the area before giving up. But when she was invited to be a guest at Times Square Church in New York for a PTSD training seminar, the sincere hearts of the senior pastors restored her hope that churches can care about the military. Incidentally, in the last year, Springfield Faith Center has also initiated the training process with Bridges to Healing after seeing more and more veterans returning home.
Supporting the troops
“PTSD is affecting every church in America,” says Eric Garcia, co-founder of the Association of Marriage and Family Ministries. “The problem is, generally speaking, the church just doesn’t know what to do. When you go through seminary, PTSD is not in the curriculum. The key is educating the church and helping them understand how they can play this key role in people’s lives.”
That’s where several nonprofit organizations can offer support. Jon Norsworthy founded The Sanctuary (www.guardiansanctuary.org), based outside Washington, D.C., as a refuge for those who have suffered combat trauma. Visitors come to retreat facilities to have time for reflection, a safe place to share their trauma, and a place to receive spiritual guidance.
“Most people don’t talk about the spiritual disengagement that accompanies PTSD,” says Norsworthy. There’s a lot of unanswered questions about how to justify what they’ve seen with the God we worship. It’s not a time for pat answers and clichés. It’s time to love them, honor them, support them.”
Marshele Carter Waddell and her husband Mark, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, share their story of dealing with PTSD through Bridges to Healing, which has worked with more than 100 churches in the last year to provide PTSD training.
“A lot of churches are really trying,” says Marshele, author of Hope for the Home Front and co-author of When War Comes Home: Christ-Centered Healing for Wives of Combat Veterans. “In the last five years, I think the tide is turning with churches. People see the need but they don’t know what to do. But resources are available now that weren’t there before.”
Norsworthy says the majority of churches he visits do not have PTSD ministries. “The folks who are doing the most work in helping with PTSD recovery are liberal nonbelievers.”
After participating in Bridges to Healing training at Times Square Church, Dr. Bill Butler, leader of the church’s military ministry, said, “Most of us didn’t realize the scope of the problem and how deep the wounds can affect somebody who’s been in combat. It gave us a greater appreciation and a wake-up call to help serve the military.” One of the many services Times Square offers is regular gatherings where veterans can develop friendships and share stories.
Churches in action
Gradually, churches are stepping up to the plate. In April 2008, Wesley United Methodist Church pastor Lyle Seger co-hosted a workshop for 20 pastors with the Massachusetts nonprofit Veterans Education Project after learning a young man who had attended his church became suicidal due to PTSD. In September 2007, about two dozen clergy met at the Fort Dix, N.J. military base to learn how to counsel traumatized soldiers.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) passed a resolution in 2007 to provide a supportive environment for returning veterans and their families, and the ELCA Minneapolis Area Synod developed The Coming Home Collaborative for those concerned with the psychological and spiritual healing of veterans.
Viet Nam vet and PTSD sufferer John Blehm and his wife, Karen, help teach classes at Skyway Church in Goodyear, Arizona, for those with PTSD and their family members. The church is also planning to bring professional counseling at an affordable price onto the church campus.
But other churches have been slow to respond. For example, Knudsen organized a PTSD-training session in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in June 2008, inviting 60 churches to hear from representatives from the Iowa City VA Hospital, Iowa National Guard, Veterans Affairs and Point Man International Ministries (Vozenilek). Leaders from seven local churches attended.
The low attendance didn’t surprise Brian Fink, Dessert Storm veteran and associate pastor at River of Life Ministries in Cedar Rapids. “Right now this is a very small blip on the radar screen, but I think caring for those with PTSD is going to be the next big thing in church ministry,” he says.
That includes big churches. Willow Creek Community Church is in the process of putting together their first support communities for military members and families at their campus in South Barrington, Illinois.
Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, hired Eric Lewis as their first pastor of military ministries in April 2008. Lewis also works with other Southern Baptist churches in the region helping them start their own military ministries.
Complicating matters for churches is the fact that those with PTSD are not likely to plainly tell their churches about it; as soldiers, most are not accustomed to asking for help.
“Churches most often find out only after the soldiers have significant problems,” says Nate Self, a decorated veteran with PTSD who fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. (For more on Self’s story, see “I Hated Myself” here.)
How your church can help
Vozenilek says churches are not responsible to aggressively seek out those who might have PTSD.
“However, church laypeople can be trained to identify the outward displays and the internal feelings of a combat veteran,” he says. “This basic training can be enough to help recognize the problems and (a) get prayer support, (b) make referrals to support systems and finally (c) be able to support as a concerned layperson within the community.”
Captain Jeffrey Farr, an Iowa National Guard chaplain, points out that while it’s crucial to know when to refer vets to outside resources, churches are also mission-critical to recovery.
“Help veterans address not just ‘why’ their experiences happened, but to what extent can this be used?” he says. “Do not turn them away because you feel like you have nothing to offer. They need you, and they need the God that you represent.”
Al Guerra, pastor of the 400-member Hispanic congregation at Wheaton (Ill.) Bible Church, says that when veterans come home from a war, “They often just need basic assistance—rides, food, help in getting out of debt, upkeep in the home. But churches should form a network to find the families of soldiers and show up at their front door asking, ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’”
Lisa Jaycox, senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, says that the more stress a family is under, the harder it is to recover from PTSD. Like Guerra, she notes that any support churches can offer the family is helpful, from mowing the lawn and offering meals to providing financial guidance.
Vozenilek feels that churches basically turned their backs on the Viet Nam veterans. “My greatest fear today is not that the churches are turning their backs, but that they won’t care for veterans because they simply don't know what to do,” he says. “There are certainly churches out there doing it right. But they're few and far between.”
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