In February 2020 we had a small group gathered together in Louisiana to brainstorm what ReachGlobal Crisis Response’s trauma care ministry could look like. None of us could have imagined what the next year would bring. Just a few weeks later churches all over the country were looking for ways to engage and minister to people that were struggling during the beginning of the pandemic. Our leadership knew that trauma care would be one of the ways to care for someone’s emotional and spiritual well-being, and we wanted to equip churches to see beyond physical ministry opportunities.

By early April we had crafted an online training for churches who were looking to use basic trauma care as an outreach opportunity during the spring shutdowns. We were training ministry leaders and church volunteers in how to help people process what they were experiencing, both from Covid and from the safety measures put in place. All of our training had to be offered over Zoom since our staff weren’t able to travel. As travel restrictions are starting to loosen up we are looking forward to being able to offer more of these training sessions in person, and developing additional training for churches who want to go deeper.

This month we took the next step with our trauma care ministry; a volunteer team headed to our Lake Charles response requested the basic trauma care training for their short-term missions team. With part of our trauma care team serving there on site, it was easy to set up an in-person training while they were in Louisiana. Two of the volunteers on that team are paramedics back in Minnesota and they were excited to see how they could use this training in their day-to-day lives as they interact with people in crisis. Now our Trauma Care team would like to offer this training to more short-term teams before or during their mission trips. For more information about our trauma care resources, or to requests a training for your church, please email crisisresponse@efca.org.