First responders in Haines will now have the benefit of an official Chaplain. Pastor Matt Jones, of the Port Chilkoot Bible Church, has recently offered to volunteer his services to Haines police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel. Serving in the Coast Guards for twenty six years has made Jones intimately familiar with the stresses first responders face and the needs that can result. Hailing from Kansas, he went on to a career in the Coast Guards that took  him from Florida and Louisiana, through the Persian Gulf, to Kodiak, Valdez and Juneau. Upon retiring he felt the need to serve in a more spiritual manner, and he has been a full time minister for the last eight years.

Here he talks about the role of a chaplain:

“A Chaplain is meant to be specifically non denominational, and is meant to be essentially a friend to walk alongside people in a safe and confidential manner. And he would still encourage some of the same long term goals as far as communicating through difficult days, and challenges and things that add stress in our lives.”

During his career he was involved in a multitude of potentially traumatic events, and here he talks about the kind of support that carried him through the rough times:

“It was important to us to sit down and to process those things that they had seen and that they had participated in, and oftentimes, these are things that disturb our minds, and take some extra discussion, to make sure that as we think about them, that we realize that what we are thinking and feeling is normal, and that everybody else feels the same way, and that while it’s disturbing, that some of these memories may last for a while.”

Jones plans on spending more time around the public safety building , to get to know the officers, volunteers and staff so that he can better assist them in times of stress. He draws a line between the work of a therapist and that of a chaplain, in that he does not have the professional counseling training and ability to prescribe medications.

However a chaplain may be more adept in other ways,

“To share some feelings that might be of a more sensitive and spiritual nature, that go from a person’s mind into their soul, and touch them in a different way.”