A Shoulder To Cry On

Providing hope to recently returned veterans

Home to both McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis Military Post, Pierce County, Wash., is home to hundreds of thousands of troops – often stopping through on their way to or from deployment. In between Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier National Park, the picturesque area of Tacoma and its suburbs is often a welcome sight for the sore eyes of a soldier just returning to U.S. soil after serving in Iraq.

It’s no surprise that, upon return, veterans are delighted to see their loved ones and begin to re-establish their lives back home. What is surprising to many of them and their families is just how difficult this adjustment can be. Challenges range from nightmares and jittery nerves to marital crises and even suicidal thoughts. Experienced counselors are difficult to find, and while some military-issued health insurance offers coverage for mental illnesses, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), diagnosis can be a gray area, and treatment isn’t always readily available.

Thankfully, one ELCA congregation is offering a means to find support.

Hope Lutheran Church serves about 175 people in the neighborhood of South Tacoma. The area was established in the nineteenth century, attracting Scandinavian immigrants to labor in nearby railroads and shipyards. One hundred and fifty years later, South Tacoma remains largely blue collar and transient, with an annual residential turnover rate of 35 percent.

Hope Lutheran’s pastor, the Rev. Jonathan Sansgaard, witnesses the struggles within his community, and under his leadership the congregation has done everything it can to help. They offer a variety of programming and fellowship services at its appropriately named fellowship center, Community of Hope.

When the area’s public schools cut funding for music and the arts, Community of Hope’s Center for Music and Learning gave children in the congregation and area schools a much-needed chance to participate in theatrical learning and performances. For the area’s low-income population, the center offers a Sunday breakfast to invite people for a hot meal and camaraderie -- whether or not they’ve attended worship service. And for the local soldiers from the bases at McChord and Fort Lewis, Community of Hope has provided a truly miraculous gift –Bennie “Doc” Thompson.

Thomspon hails from Chicago, a former Methodist pastor with advanced degrees in both education and psychology. He came to Tacoma for a career change several years ago and began teaching courses in psychology, philosophy, and the humanities at Pierce College. He soon met Pastor Sansgaard and accepted his invitation to attend services at Hope Lutheran. He’s been a good friend – and active member of the congregation – ever since.

His ministry of counseling the soldiers began out of necessity. While teaching classes, the empathetic Thompson began to first see, and then feel the deep pain of his students. He started to informally talk with them after class and listened to their stories. Stories from the spouses who feel like strangers after months of separation in such different worlds. The healing wounded who struggle to get by each day while battling flashbacks – in addition to chronic pain. The young soldiers who – understandably terrified by all that they recently witnessed – cannot get to sleep, jumping at each and every noise they hear.

Once he realized the need, Thompson began looking for office space for his counseling services - turning to his friend Rev. Sansgaard for help. The pastor, who recognized the good that his congregant was doing for the community, set him up in a small back office at Community of Hope. Since then, Thompson and the Center have offered low-cost (and often free) counseling services to veterans and their families.

Drawing on his experience as a psychologist as well as a pastor, Thompson consoles and prays with the soldiers. Occasionally he administers hypnotherapy, helping them confront the source of their fears. Most of all, he simply listens to them, with compassion and caring.

“When soldiers return from war, their whole world is turned upside down, and they are hurting,” he says. “They need someone to listen to them. Someone who understands the intensity of what they’ve seen and experienced. Someone to remind them that they don’t have to be afraid. Someone to care.”

Thompson also travels the country, encouraging other congregations and communities to open their doors and hearts to our brave soldiers. “Although they still may be walking and talking,“ he says, “in many ways they have given part of their lives for this country. Whether or not they are a member of the church, we have a responsibility to help them, to listen to what they have to say.”

Community of Hope Center is a shining example of how a spirited ELCA congregation provides immeasurable good to its community, truly doing God’s work. Originally an unused and dilapidated Sunday School space on the Hope Lutheran grounds, the Center began after a massive renovation, made possible by the vision of Pastor Sansgaard – and a loan from the Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA. “[Hope Lutheran] was small potatoes for the local banks,” said Pastor Sansgaard. “I turned to the Mission Investment Fund because they were our only chance to get the funding we needed for the project.”

Mission Investment Fund is honored to have played a role in a bringing so much hope to so many people. Today, Community of Hope provides fellowship and support to many – often to those that have nowhere else to turn. For children in a school system with no funding for the arts, the center offers the after-school theater program. For Tacoma’s Korean population, the center houses office space for the area’s only Korean-speaking church. For recently released prisoners, a post-incarceration support group in the Center provides housing placement and assistance.

And for many soldiers and their families, Doc Thompson’s counseling office offers a refuge from pain, a sanctuary of hope, and a place in which to begin a new life.