Student Ministry Report: Colin Fenn

by Laura Joy Griffith

Colin Fenn

 

          Multnomah senior Colin Fenn is an intern with the Clark County Fire Department Chaplains, where he gains valuable experience for his career as a Navy Chaplain.  Colin’s involvement may qualify as a student ministry, but it is a lot more serious and demanding than the average student ministry.  “Chaplains respond to trauma within Clark County,” Colin explains, “at any time, anywhere in the county.”  It is not an easy task.  “When I go on call, I pray that I don’t get a page.  I pray for a quiet day where I don’t do a thing.  When I do get a page, I dread arrival.  Because when I’m doing my job, something horrible has happened.  Somebody has lost their husband.  Their wife.  Their child.  Their family.  Often in a violent, or unexpected way.  I’m glad that somebody is there to help ease the pain…I’m honored that God has chosen me to have a role in that.” 

            Colin’s ministry allows him to have a profound impact on people in need: “We make the immediate aftermath of a tragedy much easier to bear,” he says.  “We help [those involved] gather their support network, contact pastors, give encouragement and comfort as much as we can…Our impact is largely unseen, and hard to measure.  Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes we walk away wondering if we did any good at all.  But we do our best to make the lives of people affected by tragedy a little easier.” 

            Those involved in tragedy are often traumatized, but it’s not easy for those that must respond, either.  Spending so much time witnessing the aftermath of horror would be difficult for anybody.  “A unique challenge is keeping yourself emotionally healthy by separating yourself from the situation that you’re in, and still remaining empathetic as a means of support for a grieving family.  It’s necessary to be able to talk to a grieving wife or mother one minute, clean up a gunshot suicide the next minutes, and then, when finished, be able to go home, shower, and eat dinner and not take any of that home with you.”

            We are all grateful for people like Colin who are willing to face these challenges in order to help the hurting, for we would not want to have to deal with all the things he deals with.  “The things we do, see, and deal with are not for the faint of heart,” he says.  “It is the world, in all its brutality, uncensored.”  That is certainly not your average student ministry.