Goldsboro site of minister workshop on wounded veterans
By Staff Reports
Published in News on December 11, 2010 11:20 PM
Goldsboro has been selected as the site of "Walking with the Wounded," a workshop to teach pastors and others to minister to servicemen and women coming home from war.
About 100 clergy and mental-health professionals from throughout North Carolina are expected to attend. The day-long workshop will be held Friday, Jan. 7, at Madison Avenue Baptist Church.
The sponsors are the Baptist State Convention, the Neuse Baptist Association and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Durham.
The hospital's chief of chaplain services, the Rev. Dr. John Oliver, will lead the workshop.
With V.A. support, Oliver has initiated programs nationwide to educate pastors on the effects of war.
He has been awarded the VA's Secretary's Award for Excellence in Chaplaincy and the Military Chaplains Association's Distinguished Service Award.
The Goldsboro workshop will focus largely on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that the disorder affects about 11 percent of veterans from the war in Afghanistan and 20 percent of Iraqi war veterans.
Oliver said that all combat veterans return with some measure of of psychological injury. Often they approach ministers for help before consulting mental-health professionals.
The conference will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. To register, send $10 per person -- checks payable to Baptist State Convention of North Carolina -- to 1019 Whippoorwill Lane, Indian Trail, N.C, 28079. E-mail thomas.lee.watson@gmail.com for more information.