For those of you who are still watching the blog, I thought I should put my update in also. I am finishing my summer CPE at the VA Hospital in Oklahoma City. Over the course of three months of ministering to hospital patients every day, I have undergone a startling metamorphosis. I have been transformed from an uncertain seminary graduate into a minister. I still don't like talking about myself. But no one else is going to do it for me, so I have to do it myself. My supervisor told me that my instincts for ministry are amazing. On one occasion, I noticed that a Vietnam Veteran was suffering a PTSD episode. I intervened and was able to talk him out of it. I have visited the families of deceased patients. I have talked with patients who had just been told that they are not going to get better. I visited with a patient who only had one leg, and he was going into surgery to have it removed. In my surgical round, I stood next to the surgeon as he lifted a patient's beating heart out of his chest. In my peer group meetings, I have figuratively torn my own heart out and laid it on the table for everyone to examine.

What I am trying to say is that I have come a long way in just a couple of months. I am not the same person you knew in seminary. I came here with nothing. I gave myself to the patients and they taught me how to minister to them. I meet with my COPM committe in about two weeks. My supervisor said that with the evaluation that he is going to give me, they should approve me to seek a call, no problem.

I ask your prayers as I continue to navigate the hazardous waters of ordination. I thank you for the prayers that have been given for me already, they are a major reason why I have gotten as far as I have.

Ron Church