Building a Christian Doula Ministry

00:04 - Speaker 1 Hello everyone. I am Laurel Marr, the creator of the Death and Resurrection Doula, and I want to introduce my friend and colleague, Lisa Bennion to you. She is living in Phoenix, Arizona. She is a nurse and also a certified doula. So, Lisa, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit more? 00:24 - Speaker 2 Sure, sure. Well, I'm really excited to be here, Laurel, with you. Death and dying is something near and dear to my heart. Like you said, I'm a nurse. I'm actually working as a hospice nurse. I've been doing that for I believe it's now about six and a half years, and originally I came to this work really as a young, like 21-year-old, really coming out of nursing school, and I landed in my first jobs that I worked with. 01:01 I landed in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit and a unit for really sick children and I found myself dealing with death and dying with children as a, you know, just young person, right, and I think that's when I fell in love with death and dying. 01:21 Not death and dying like this is a wonderful thing to celebrate, but death and dying is a place of service where I felt like I really my heart was just open to these children and their families, and I think that the Lord really used me to be just His hands and feet, to love and serve, and so I did that for a few years and then I ended up being a stay-at-home mom for a very long time. So when I came back after raising my children, this was the most natural place for me to go to serve in this way, so that's my vocation. I'm also a certified death doula 2019, I did a training program in Colorado and just fine tuning. You know my skills and my desires to really serve people emotionally and spiritually and how can I cultivate that even in deeper ways? To be present with people who are dying in their families and really be a support. 02:33 - Speaker 1 So that's a little bit about me, thank you. Well, one of the things I love about working together and I want to clarify this for everyone watching the video I've asked Lisa to come on board with me in Module 2 and help me create the caregiving part of the practitioner model of doula care. And so I am trained as a doula as well, Lisa. She has spent so much more time around patients than I have that I can't just rely on my own knowledge, because I'm not. You know that's. I bring the theology to this program, and so I've asked Lisa to help me develop the doula care model for doulas, because it is a new field. It's not regulated by any means. I want to develop a standard so that people who are training as doulas are really comfortable in their role and people who are looking to have doulas incorporated into their end-of-life care fully anticipate the care that they're going to give. 03:39 So for this, Lisa and I have been working very hard together and, as Module 2 has just been launched, she will be teaching the classes this fall. She'll be teaching three of the classes the what is Hospice Care class, a class on doula caregiving, the basics of that, and also on how doulas help create care plans we're going to dive into several end-of-life diseases and talk a little bit about the progression towards death in those specific diseases and how doulas can be helpful to a dying person and their caregivers and their families and their loved ones. So I'm very excited. I'm very grateful. Lisa, thank you. I do want to also ask you to share about what drew you to my program, because you didn't come in to help me collaborate and build this. You came in because your husband introduced us and you were interested in a Christian death doula program. 04:44 - Speaker 2 Yes. So my husband Scott, he's a connector and he met you and connected the two of us eventually, after you guys became friends and for some time, and I had already gone through my certification program, and actually you know, my journey with God has taken me on a lot of different roads in my life. I was raised Catholic and I actually became converted to Judaism at one point in my life. I was raised Catholic and I actually became converted to Judaism at one point in my life and the Lord called me back to Him and I had a coming to my own faith experience, actually after taking my death doula certification. So that was a secular program and there was a lot of value in it, for sure, and yet everything kind of got put on a shelf for a period of time as I, as the Lord called me, back to himself and I didn't know quite what my death doula work would look like now with Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and how that's going to be different. 06:07 So the timing of Scott connecting with you and plugging us together was perfect, because it's very different as a death and resurrection doula to really be in the theology of who Jesus is, who God is, what our relationship is to him, what he did for us and where our life is found. And how can I use all of that and truly be of service to him? So powerful and Laurel, you're creating, in the midst of creating, the first death and resurrection doula, christian training program in the world, right, yes, yes, and so I just believe that God brought us together for a very important reason, and this is the next step for me in my training and my growth and my maturing as a Christian to really get grounded in truth and in Him, so that I can be of service, service. So it's really fascinating to me to think about how God works and brings us all together at the right time, and that's how we ended up connecting and it was just perfect timing. 07:38 - Speaker 1 It really was. And her husband, scott, is a chaplain and he found my program and was very interested in it, particularly the classical Christian teaching that I've developed through the curriculum. So this program is excellent. I wouldn't be able to do it without professionals like Lisa and Scott, her husband, who have been helpful. So I'm so glad to introduce you, Lisa. So I'm so glad to introduce you, Lisa. I'm really looking forward to working together this fall as we teach the Module 2, the Practitioner Curriculum for being a Death and Resurrection Doula For the community. I want to let you know there are several, more than several, two handfuls of people training and we should see certified doulas by the end of this year. So please keep this ministry in your prayers. If you know of anyone who has a calling to caring for the dying, introduce them to us, and I look forward to growing as a community and seeing what the Lord has in store. All right, thank you for being a part.