ARLINGTON – Whether it’s a major tragedy like the Oso landslide or the Marysville-Pilchuck shooting, or a more-personal one like a heart attack or car accident, emotional support is often needed.
Hope Unlimited chaplains provide that support not only to victims’ families and friends, but also to traumatized first responders. Their chaplains are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They responded to about 200 calls last year, mostly in the greater Arlington area. But they also help with backup chaplain needs in Tulalip and Marysville.
Along with a golf tournament in the spring, the nonprofit Hope Unlimited is having its other main fundraiser of the year Oct. 1. Music by The Coats will be performed at Byrnes Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m.
Joel Johnson was working part-time as a landscaper and as an associate pastor at Arlington Assembly of God in 2014. A friend at church asked him to become a chaplain for Hope Unlimited.
“As a pastor I have a desire to help people who are hurting on the worst days of their lives,” he said.
He had been volunteering there for about a year when the call came in about the Oso slide.
At first, they had no idea of the magnitude. Since it was only a call for a single engine at first they thought it might be a small slide with maybe a collapsed building. The chaplains were “hard pressed” for coverage, so Johnson responded.
That began a 38-day stretch where Johnson became the front-line chaplain for west side recovery efforts. He became part of a rescue team and searched and dug up remains. If they recovered something he was there to provide immediate psychological and emotional first aid. Among his finds was a bible owned by a survivor who lost family members and a home in the slide.
“Looking back, I stayed strong, but I recognized quickly something bigger than myself helped me,” Johnson said. “If it was only me I would have found a place to cuddle up in the fetal position and cry for awhile.”
He said 2 1/2 years later he still has requests for services to remain out there part-time.
“I need to be there for the families and first-responders who serve this great valley who are still healing from the most tragic event anyone can imagine,” he said.
Even though they are chaplains, their work does not focus on prayer.
“We provide a ministry of presents,” he said. “Some people can’t even function. We take a little bit of weight off their shoulders. We care for them. I seem to do dishes a lot. We can be on scene three or four hours before the funeral home gets there.”
He said nonbelievers even appreciate him being there.
He recalls someone saying, “I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe in God. But can you say a prayer for us?”
On other calls, the families definitely are religious. One such time, an elderly man died after having some serious medical issues. Johnson was with the family for about five hours, and they told family stories.
“It was love, but not tears,” Johnson said.
They even included him in card games.
“I told the spouse they ministered to me that day,” Johnson said.
He added that she told him they would “pray for me because of how tough of a job being a chaplain can be.”
Laurie Jacobsen started volunteering fours years ago. She is a member of Marysville Church of the Nazarene, but unlike many of the chaplains she is not a pastor.
She’d been thinking about trying it for years. Her brother was a chaplain in Lewis County, but she was “a little afraid to try it.”
She decided to “go for it” after hearing from her brother about a baby that had been murdered. She knew the family growing up.
“I wanted to learn how to help in that kind of situation,” she said.
Jacobsen looked online and found Hope Unlimited, led by Ralph Fry, who had been her pastor 25 years before. She felt like that was a sign for her to continue to pursue this. After one-on-one mentoring, being on call, shadowing chaplains and then her being shadowed by an experienced chaplain, she was ready to go to the week-long academy in Burien.
“It was intense,” she said, adding it basically expanded on what she already had learned.
Jacobsen hadn’t been on the job that long when first the Oso landslide hit, followed by the M-P shooting.
She said their role as chaplain is to sit and listen.
“Having someone sit with them” means so much, she said. “They’re so traumatized they can barely breathe or think straight.”
Jacobsen said, “Platitudes like, ‘They are in a better place,’ or ‘God has another angel,’ do not help at all. What we may think are harmless phrases can be hurtful.”
She said their goal is to validate the feelings of the people involved.
“It’s OK to be angry,” she said, adding they don’t offer advice because everybody grieves differently.
There are so many variables, sometimes Jacobsen said she wonders if she has done any good.
“When you leave you’re not sure,” she said, adding during follow-ups later people have said how important she was in their grief process.
Jacobsen said some calls are harder than others, especially if they relate to a personal experience.
“We check up on each other,” she said of the chaplains.
She said it’s not their job to preach. Sometimes she has just made coffee or folded laundry.
“We’re not allowed to proselytize,” she said, adding they have to be careful because they do get some public funds.
But if they are asked to pray with the family and friends, they can do that. They support people, make them as comfortable as possible, because “they want something to help them get through it.”
Jacobsen said she has a degree in psychology, but she never used it. And she once volunteered at a hospital to comfort people who had a loved one in surgery.
“That prepared me for this,” she said.
Jacobsen said if not for her faith, she doesn’t know how she would deal with all the grief.
“I pray all the way to my calls, and ask God to prepare them and to prepare me with the right words. I rely on him because I can’t do it on my own.”
Fry started the north county Hope Unlimited in 1998. The 20 chaplains make themselves available for 24-hour shifts, from 7 a.m. one day to the next. Most volunteer once or twice a week, others three times a month.
They only respond when requested. And it’s not just in an accident or tragedy. Even if it’s natural causes those involved may want a chaplain.
“We support you in your darkest moments,” Fry said.
He said sometimes first-responders can talk a victim’s family into having a chaplain come, such as when they need to respond to another call but don’t want to leave the family alone.
“If something happened to me in my house I’d want that for my family,” Fry said.
He said many times he would come home from an emergency in the middle of the night, and his wife would ask, “How’d it go?”
So many times I said, “I really was able to make a difference tonight,” he added.
Some of the toughest times have been when a young person has committed suicide, and there are distraught parents and high school kids gathered at the scene.
“I get down on a knee and not say anything,” he said. “I’m there just to be with them and care for them.”
Fry said not all his calls end up bad.
A woman had gone 11 minutes without oxygen, and Fry was told by the ambulance driver that there was little hope and to prepare the family.
She was taken to a hospital – “if she lived that long” – and he followed along with about 50 friends and family. He asked if they want to pray with him, and they “jumped on it.” One family member was a coach, so they gathered in a big huddle, all putting their arms around each other. Fry got a knot in his throat, so the husband patted him on the back to comfort him.
“God, we need your help. Amen,” was all Fry could say.
Soon after, a doctor Fry said reminded him of Doogie Howser, came out and said using angioplasty they were able to rebuild her heart. The next morning she woke up and recognized them all. She went home three days later. Every year he is invited to her re-birthday party. That was in 1989, and she’s in her 70s now.
Fry gave another example of a woman who was in terrible pain. She had been gaining weight and didn’t know why so she went on a crash diet. She did’t even know she was pregnant, but she was having a baby.
“That was definitely a miracle,” Fry said.
