Pastoral Assistant
2024 marks 20 years since I qualified as a Physiotherapist and 10 years since becoming an Elder in the Kirk. For the last 5 years I have been a Worship Leader and a member of the Lower Clyde Local Area Mission Group, all of which led to this Pastoral Assistant role commencing in January 2022.
In my professional life, I have specialised 3 times in Community Rehab, Specialist Palliative Care in a Christian Hospice and my current role in Integrative Medicine, taking patient’s spiritual needs into account using a trauma-informed holistic approach to the management of long term conditions.
Many of my patients describe a cascade of health problems, starting from a traumatic event such as a bereavement or sudden illness and I want to be able to go ‘upstream’, so to speak, and support people through those huge life events and bring the light and healing that only the Holy Spirit can to those problems before they become insurmountable.
As a committed spirit-filled Christian I believe that both my professional career and this ministry role are a calling from God to bring healing and I strive everyday to witness to all that He has done for me and continues to do through me. I enjoy being out in the parish meeting folk from all walks of life and I particularly love the primary school chaplaincy work.
In the last 2 years I have enjoyed getting to know all of you through life’s highs and lows, leading worship, re-starting the Sunday School and assisting with funerals and home communions as required. I completed the Eldership and Local Church Leadership in Changing Contexts short course at Trinity College Glasgow which was very interesting and an excellent networking opportunity for us.
I have loved carrying on the work of the Café Church and raising its profile with the filming of our promotional video for the Church of Scotland’s YouTube channel. I have twice written for the weekly worship materials on the Church of Scotland’s website. I also loved leading the Service of Loss and Renewal, which featured in the Life and Work Magazine and was a truly poignant and healing occasion for all those present.
I have one teenager who is going off to University this year but still enjoys annual visits to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh with me. I like being out in nature, walking, any sort of beauty or pampering treatment, and music is definitely a huge part of my life – I play the clarinet, guitar and I love to sing.
I am so looking forward to seeing what God has planned for us next as a church family and feel honoured to play a small part in the mission He has mapped out for these 3 villages of Inverkip, Skelmorlie and Wemyss Bay.
