Ambassador Tour – Telluride, CO

The sixth location on the Ambassador Tour was in Telluride, Colorado. IFOC is having a class there in September. We were welcomed by the class host, Angie, and stayed at her home in the mountains. It was breath taking, with snowcapped peaks on all sides and sheep grazing on the hillsides. We met with the group that are interested in taking the class and are promoting it. There were many questions asked and lively discussion took place.

It was a great experience for us to meet with a group, ahead of a class, to answer questions. They appreciated representatives from the National Office meeting with them face to face.

Our host has had two very difficult traumas in her life and after she had taken the training, she could identify how a Chaplain can help in traumatic situations, such as what she experienced.

One of those experiences will be posted on the IFOC website and Facebook page. Her experience in her own words is shared to encourage others to understand how a trained Chaplain could have been of great service in one of those incidents.

Thank you, Angie, for sharing insights in your own life and hosting a class to help all the small towns in your area of the Rocky Mountains. Also thank you for taking good care of us and providing the most beautiful view we have ever seen and allowing us to get some much needed rest.

Can Chaplains play a vital roll in our lives? Twenty-four years ago this June I received a personal “death notice.” I was thirty-one years old with a three-month-old daughter. As I opened my front door there stood a friend who was a Deputy Marshal. He had the daunting task of bringing my deceased husbands personal items to our house and to confirm the fact that my husband had been killed in a truck roll over accident the night before. As kind as this gentleman was there was an awkward time after he gave me the information and delivered the effects. Becoming a Chaplain on June 9, 2016 I looked back on my situation and realized that had a chaplain come with the Marshal it would have been a person who could have helped with the transition instead of just having a door closed and being alone. In our small community there are no specific chaplains so death notices fall on the first responders or Coroner. How kind it would be for every community to have one or two chaplains that would take on this task to support the first responders and build a bridge to the community. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

Chaplain Angie