Annual Christian Worker's Retreat serves to encourage staff serving at all levels of Hospital and School.
Current Needs of the Hospital Chaplaincy Department include:
-part-time help from another ordained pastor
-funds to cover transportation costs of volunteers
-funds to reimburse volunteers for crafts supplies
-funds to pay for literature to give to patients
-funds to continue to pay the head chaplain a full-time salary
A visit with the Chaplain
 |
Rev. Suheil Bathish, during his visit to
NPI headquarters in Lancaster, PA (June, 2008) |
Around that time, I was asked to help as a translator for the daily morning services. The chaplain at that time, David Allen, an ex-pat, encouraged me to pursue Christian education at a seminary or Bible College. As a married man with one boy and a child on the way, Bethlehem Bible College was the best possibility, not Europe, or any far away place. So we moved to Bethlehem.
By the time I graduated and returned with my family to Nazareth in 1993, Rev. Allen had left and Nazareth had hired Rev. Ibrahim Simaan from Haifa. Rev. Simaan was head chaplain and I joined him as his assistant. We worked together thirteen years before Rev. Ibrahim retired and I became head chaplain.
In this work, no two days are alike. Each day brings new opportunities. I spend most of my time in the orthopedic and medical departments. ICU patients don’t have as much energy to talk, but I go and I sit with their families. Sometimes the family members stay over with their loved ones and I invite them to my sitting room, so they have some time to rest.
In the afternoons, we try to organize home visits for both patients and staff. We also have counseling with staff. Hospital staff can also come to me and share whatever bothers them or upsets them. I am ready to listen to them. We also have staff prayer meetings in the chapel.
I do room visits, entering each room and speaking with the patients who are awake and able to speak. Patients are anxious about the treatments they are receiving, worried about the unknown. They are in a strange place, away from their homes, their families, their jobs. You need to be wise and to know when it’s the right time, when a patient wants to talk, whether he or she is too tired for a visit. It depends from patient to patient. If a patient wants me to stay, I bring a chair next to the bed and I sit next to them. I pray for all the patients— if they agree. If I am praying for a patient, and the doctor comes by on rounds, they wait for me until I have finished my prayer. We are multi-cultural and we have different religions, so you have to be very sensitive. Visitation for the patients requires much compassion and love."
-Rev. Suheil Bathish, Head Chaplain, Nazareth Hospital, EMMS
In June 2008, Chaplain Bathish visited US chaplaincy departments for further training. In Washington DC, NPI arranged for him to work with the chaplaincy team at Howard University Hospital, connected by our board member, Dr. Ponnuswamy Swamidoss. In New York, he worked with Chaplain Joe Haines, himself a former Nazareth Hospital chaplain. That was in the 1970’s, when Suheil was a young maintenance man. For his final week in the States, Rev. Bathish visited Ephrata Community Hospital with Rev. Donna Shenk, and participated in an all-day seminar led by Rev. Tom Dodge of Hospice of Lancaster.
