Bringing comfort and counsel
Chaplains help military personnel deal with stressful holidays at home or kids face trying times in the hospital
Several dozen members of the 58th Air Maintenance Squadron stood in formation at Kirtland Air Force Base listening to some friendly advice from the Rev. David Dziolek, a base chaplain.
“Be safe” over the holidays, he said. “Domestic violence increases. Why?” Dziolek cites a list of reasons, among them: “Alcohol. Kids are home from school.”
The men and women in the squadron looked a bit tired and restless after a long day maintaining C-130s, the huge military transport planes based at Kirtland. Minutes earlier, a technical sergeant had explained that everyone remains on-call throughout the Christmas holidays.
No one could leave town, even if they weren’t scheduled to work.
“If you have some challenges in your life, with finances, with wives, with spouses, come talk to me,” Dziolek told them.
Chaplains are clergy of any faith who work in secular institutions, such as military units, hospitals, prisons, police and fire departments.
Kirtland Air Force Base and Presbyterian Hospital each has a staff of chaplains who
reach out to people in times of emotional extremes, which are often heightened during the Christmas holidays.
Dziolek is one of four chaplains at Kirtland who serve 3,125 active duty airmen in the 377th Air Base Wing. All four have served overseas deployments, including war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We serve in the midst of those areas where life and death are realities for people, and where questions are no longer theory. Now it’s real,” said the Rev. Thomas Elbert, Jr., a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and wing chaplain at Kirtland.
Christmas is celebrated as the season of peace and joy. But for many, including those serving their country or battling a serious illness in a hospital, the holidays can contribute to feelings of stress and loneliness.
The men and women under Dziolek’s chaplaincy might have been an earlier version of himself, when he served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1990s, maintaining aircraft far from home.
“My first Thanksgiving, I remember eating popcorn in the dorm because I didn’t know anybody that well,” Dziolek recalled. “I was kind of a shy kid then.”
There’s nothing shy about Dziolek these days. He shows up anywhere members of the 58th Special Operations Wing congregate, mixing with airmen, speaking and listening, and making himself visible and available.
A nondenominational minister, Dziolek practices what he calls “the ministry of presence,” earning the trust of others by frequent contact.
Service members often live with painful memories of deployments overseas and combat experiences, he said. They don’t like to show weakness and are often reluctant to discuss problems.
His ministry includes members of the Pararescue School at Kirtland, known as the PJs, whom he describes as “tough guys.”
“With a constant presence, even the toughest PJs will start to open up and share some their deepest pain,” Dziolek said. “When they can begin to share, that’s when the healing begins.”
Prayers at Presbyterian
Chaplains often have to break through emotional barriers.
Jayden Rios, 6, had just endured a day of chemotherapy at Presbyterian Hospital and wasn’t in any mood for visitors.
“Jayden, can I say another prayer for you today?” asked the Rev. Kelly Gregory, a chaplain at Presbyterian who ministers to families in several pediatric units at Presbyterian Hospital.
Jayden didn’t respond, but he didn’t say no, either.
Gregory joined hands with Jayden’s grandmother, Monsy Salas, and others in the room and prayed over Jayden, who remained engrossed in a smartphone.
Gregory celebrated Jayden’s completion of his latest round of chemotherapy.
“We thank you for all blessings, and especially this blessing,” she said.
Jayden’s family planned to return home for a few days, then return to the hospital on Wednesday to begin the next of several rounds of chemotherapy, Salas said.
“We will spend Christmas Eve here,” Salas said. “We will be back here every 11 days. That’s our life.”
Gregory, who ministers to children and their families in several pediatric units at Presbyterian Hospital, said she often gets the cold shoulder from patients she encounters in her work.
“Especially the younger ones, they don’t even want to look at you,” she said. “Everybody wants to poke and prod them. I may be the only person they can say ‘no’ to.”
Gregory has better luck with Anna Jenkins, 18, who has struggled all her life with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that deprived her of her hair at age 16. Gregory sat close to Jenkins and asked a few questions about her life.
“The hair loss was really hard to deal with,” said Jenkins, who graduated in May from Sandia Preparatory School. “As an insecure 16-year-old, one of the things I really liked about myself is that I had really pretty hair.”
But hair loss has proven an advantage in her volunteer work with young cancer patients, Jenkins said.
“Younger girls look up to me because I didn’t fit the social norms about what girls should look like,” she said. “I don’t believe our bodies are really who we are.”
Jenkins spoke comfortably about the chronic illnesses that brought her to Presbyterian.
“You seem really strong and confidant,” Gregory told her. “That inner strength is not something that everybody has.”
A Presbyterian pastor, Gregory spends much of her time ministering to the medical staff at Presbyterian, who often become emotionally overwhelmed caring for children with serious illnesses. The death of a young patient on the pediatric floor is especially tough both for staff and for patients, who often befriend each other during long illnesses.
“You can’t always make people feel good,” Gregory said. “Happy isn’t always the answer.”
The strains of a hospital stay or an overseas deployment may seem especially difficult during the Christmas season, said the Rev. Jeff Hoppe, director of chaplaincy services at Presbyterian Healthcare Services.
“The whole idea of being in the hospital doesn’t fit the paradigm of a perfect holiday,” he said. “There’s nothing we can tell them that’s going to make it all better.”
The chaplain’s job is to attempt to offer hope and comfort to people under trying circumstances, Hoppe said.
“I think our presence attempts to be a reminder that they are not alone — that a higher power cares about them even in the circumstances of life that they are facing at the moment,” he said. “I do think it helps to know you are not alone. It may not be all we want, but it does help.”