On Wednesday, July 31, 2013, there wasa very special meeting of the NSD Ministerial department with Kang Soon Gi, KUC assistant to the president for ministerial, and Dr. Kim Nami, SU professor, licensed counselor, and pastor’s wife. Our topic was the development of a training program for pastoral spouses. Dr. Kim Nami gave an important presentation on the need for continuing education for pastoral spouses. The goal of the meeting was to begin a new initiative to better serve pastoral spouses through a potential curriculum that will focus on Mental Well-being.
This planning toward a structured training program includes recognition of the training that is already being done by KUC through the Adventist Training Center, and a Sahmyook University Counselor Training Program. The addition of a Mental Well-Being Component would bring encouragement and practical skills to our pastoral spouses.
Not only would there be a pilot program initiated out of the KUC office but we would like to invite Shepherdess leaders from our other NSD territories to come for training so they could share the blessing of the encouragement in their mission territory. Ultimately, we believe this initiative could be offered to pastoral spouses in other world fields.
The next steps toward an active pilot program will be to meet with Shepherdess leaders to ask for their response and suggestions. It will also be important to develop a format to make this training available to spouses in different geographic locations through technology such as video conferencing. If you would like to be part of this new initiative through your suggestions and/or expertise and experience, please contact Lynn Ripley at lripley@nsdadventist.org.