Good Samaritan parable provides the model for Victim Relief Ministries

RICHARDSON—Gene Grounds vividly remembers the exact moment a decade ago when he believes God gave him the vision for Victim Relief Ministries .

“It was June 15, 1999, at 2 p.m. in Austin,” he recalled.

Two months earlier, Grounds had joined the Texas Baptist Men staff to work with prison ministry. While he was representing TBM at a conference, he heard a police sergeant from Lockhart ask a question that pierced his heart: “Who will be there for the victim when the police leave?”

Grounds, a layman at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, became convinced Christians could fill that role by responding to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of crime victims. He saw a biblical basis for that ministry in a familiar New Testament story—Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.

“The Good Samaritan showed compassion by responding to the victim’s needs. He provided for his immediate physical needs, offered transportation and shelter, cared for the victim, spent time with him and promised to return,” Grounds said.

After praying about it with TBM staff, Grounds invited Dallas law enforcement and community leaders—including the police chief and district attorney—to a luncheon in Oak Cliff in August, 1999, where presented his vision for a volunteer ministry to crime victims.

Darril Deaton of Kaufman is one of more than 1,600 volunteers trained by Victim Relief Ministries to offer solace to victims of crime and other crises.

The officials responded eagerly, allowing Victim Relief Ministries to launch a pilot program of SAVE—Serving and Assisting Victims in Emergencies—in the southwest district of the Dallas Police Department.

During each of the first two years of the pilot program in southwest Dallas, Victim Relief Ministries served about 500 crime victims, and in 2003, the Victim Chaplain Corps program with the Dallas Police Department was expanded citywide.

“We have a ride-along program in place, and we’re planning to put a team in every substation in the city,” Grounds said.

Texas Baptist Men sponsored the start-up of the program, but Victim Relief Ministries eventually spun off to become a separate organization with its own board of directors, chaired by Joe Moseley from the Dallas Baptist Association staff. Grounds became executive director.

A TBM representative has continued to serve on the Victim Relief Ministries board, and the two groups have maintained a close working relationship—including offering joint training opportunities in victim relief and disaster relief ministries.

Victim Relief chaplains Cliff Harden from LaCoste, vice president of the victim relief committee for Texas Baptist Men, and Tim Campbell from First Baptist Church in Dallas provide comfort for emergency personnel surrounding a body bag after Hurricane Katrina.

“We just realized this needed to be a kingdom ministry, and it had to be interdenominational to have universal acceptance by the law enforcement community. We saw it as having the potential of being bigger than just in Texas, bigger than just Baptists and more than just men,” Grounds said.

A Victim Relief Ministries team responded in New York City following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In addition to serving rescue and recovery personnel at Ground Zero, the group also provided critical incident grief training for more than 300 ministers and others in six New York and New Jersey boroughs.

That event led Victim Relief Ministries to begin cross-training with Texas Baptist Men in disaster relief, and the group began deploying responders to disasters—more than 75 nationally and internationally in the last eight years.

In its first 10 years, Victim Relief Ministries has trained more than 1,600 volunteers to become victim chaplains or victim crisis responders. Chaplains are denominationally endorsed clergy with at least three years ministry experience and are expected to be on-call 24 hours a day.

Victims Relief Ministries hopes eventually to see a “prayed up, mission-ready” trained crisis responder in every church, said Deputy Executive Director Edward Smith.

“We see Victim Relief Ministries as an extension of the ministry of the local church,” Smith said. “The training we offer can help churches prepare for any crisis—any community disaster. It prepares members to be ambassadors for the church.”

Grounds and his wife, Virginia, are joined by seven other fulltime staff members and a steady stream of volunteers who work with Victim Relief Ministries from its offices in Richardson.

Brenda McAfee, director of client services for Victim Relief Ministries, helps lead a grief-recovery support group there for families who have lost loved ones to homicide.

Last fall, 12 families completed the 13-week course.  While parents participated in the support group, their children participated in an age-appropriate program developed by a licensed professional social worker.

Virginia Grounds recalled two preschoolers involved in the program.

“One 4-year-old girl had a 2-year-old baby sister who was killed. Then another family came in with a 4-year-old. Her father had been murdered, her mother died of cancer, and she was being cared for by aunts. She was dealing with a lot of anger issues,” she recalled.

When one child couldn’t understand why the other lashed out angrily when she didn’t get her way, a worker delicately explained, “Your friend lost somebody she loved, too.”

That evening, the adult support group watched home videos of their deceased family members. As the children passed by the open door of the room where the adults met, the 4-year-old whose sister had been killed saw her on the video screen. She stopped in her tracks, and tears welled in her eyes.

“The other little girl who had been so mean to her put her arm around her and patted her on the back, comforting her,” Grounds said.

“We see a lot of that. There’s anger in people when they come in. But after spending 12 or 13 weeks together, at the end, their countenance is completely different.”