Every Friday, Baptist Women in Ministry introduces an amazing minister, and today, we are pleased to introduce Pam Foster.
Pam, where are you currently serving in ministry?
I am director of pastoral care and chair of the ethics committee at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.
Tell us about your call discernment process and what led to your service as a chaplain.
While caring for my mother through her thirteen-year illness and subsequent death, I discerned a call to vocational ministry. I had always been active in a local congregation as a teacher, preschool administrator, and volunteer, but this was a call to more. I first received a call to go to seminary. I was not clear, at that point, what my vocation would be, but during my time at seminary, I used my field education class for one unit of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at a local hospital. During that field experience, I recognized what God was calling me to do. I fell in love with healthcare chaplaincy. While completing my Master of Divinity, I also completed a year of CPE residency. After graduation I went to work as chaplain for an inpatient hospice unit, which averaged about eighty deaths a month. I spent almost four years there and also serving as an on-call chaplain for Cook Children’s. Just when I thought I could no longer do two jobs I was asked to join the full-time staff at Cook Children’s. I have been here ten years, never imagining that I might one day be the director.
Who have been sources of inspiration for you along the way?
There was a dear woman of God who was director of my third grade Sunday School, Mrs. Faye Hutto, who taught me about the Bible and of God’s love for all. She helped me believe that God had a plan for my life, and I thought I was supposed to be a missionary doctor. I smile now when I think of where I am and how God took that longing of a young girl’s heart and made a dream come true. My large-hearted husband, Glen, who never questioned my call, never questioned my need for yet more schooling, and supported all the hours that my training took is my greatest blessing from God. I am privileged to stand on the shoulders of praying, caring women and men who modeled God’s love and grace in tangible ways. Two women took on the formidable task of helping me be ordained in a congregation which had never ordained a woman. They prayed for me, loved me, encouraged me, and stood firmly beside me through the tumultuous journey. I now walk alongside a staff who meet families on perhaps the worst day ever and know that God called us to this work, equips us for this work, and allows us to plant seeds we may never see harvested.
How do you keep yourself healthy–physically and spiritually?
First, I have learned that the God of my childhood is not the only God I know. I can talk to God now in ways I would never have imagined. Frankly, lament is an important part of my spiritual health and well-being. I have seen children treated in ways that no child should ever be treated. I have wept with families who love their children and are broken hearted when learning of a disease that is not curable. Knowing I can cry to God and encourage patients, families, physicians, and staff to do the same is very comforting to me. God lives here with us, making peace known through God’s presence in so many ways. I enjoy sunshine and fresh air. Touching the dirt to grow plants makes me smile, and I have fallen in love with Pilates. In my neighborhood is a Pilates studio that demonstrates God’s grace in their acceptance of my body and its strengths and challenges. The instructors there are non-competitive, encouraging, and unfailingly kind. I love to go, in part, because I cannot think about anything else while I am concentrating on breathing in and out with my exercise–such a freeing experience!