How a rural chaplain’s prayer and presence made a difference
BY LAUREN MARTIN
This is a story about Pam*, an elderly woman who lives alone in a spotlessly clean cottage in Tasmania. She enjoys herbal tea, walking to the shops and watching the sun come up out of one window, and set out of another. “I open my eyes every morning, and I’m smiling!” she beams.
But life wasn’t always this rosy for Pam. A few years ago, she described her life as “hell on earth”. She lived on a remote property without electricity or running water. She had no friends, serious health issues, and her husband of 35 years was abusive.
“My life was just hanging on by a thread,” she remembers, when through an online rural counselling contact, she was referred to The Salvation Army’s rural chaplain, Stephen Schlenk.
Stephen remembers the first time he met Pam: “Pam was sitting on her walker and waiting at the locked gate for me. We went inside, and I listened to Pam tell me her story of physical, sexual and verbal abuse from her husband. Pam had just kicked him out after the latest episode of abuse with a 4x2 piece of wood.
“Pam is a lovely lady with a beautiful smile – what you would expect your grandma to be. After her story, she asked me what she had done wrong? I replied, ‘Absolutely nothing.’”
Due to her circumstances, Pam made the painful decision to leave her property, supported by Stephen.
“Stephen lifted my world, even after that one session,” says Pam. “He had this calming demeanour … I could feel the arms of the Lord lift me up and say, ‘Your life is changing,’ and you are very blessed today to meet this person.”
An old friend of Pam’s from another state offered to let her come and stay for six months to focus on her healing. She accepted. Stephen drove her to the airport and said he would keep in touch, and he did.
“It was amazing,” she says. “I had a safe house in Queensland to go to, and the people there were amazing. I was able to relearn how to walk with a physiotherapist and great doctors.”
After five months, she moved to another state to continue her recovery for another three months, now walking with just two canes and even swimming in the ocean.
“I think I started off at 115kg when I met Stephen, and I was 87 when I finally returned to Tasmania,” she said. “I am feeling fantastic.”
When her plane touched down back in her home state, Stephen was there to pick her up. Her old car, which had been badly in need of repairs when she left, had been fixed. She moved into a home of her own and spent months cleaning, tidying and setting it up. She says that time was therapeutic. “I’ve worked hard to be able to walk again, to be able to run a home again, to be able to clean myself again, to be able to clean a home again.”
She even has a little vegetable garden. “Who would have thought! At 71, I am going to be eating my own food that I grow,” she says.
Pam has many people to thank for her recovery, including friends, health professionals, government departments and domestic violence services. But, she says, it’s been Salvation Army rural chaplain Stephen Schlenk’s enduring presence and faith that have made the biggest difference in her life.
“Stephen really, and our faith together, has saved me. There’s a lot of other people and a lot of other services in that picture, but it’s the human interaction that I needed. Stephen is such a great man, with a great role, and I can see why our Heavenly Father has chosen him for that.”
*Name has been changed
In the months since Pam shared her story with Salvos Online, she unexpectedly passed away. Rural chaplain Stephen Schlenk, with support from Pam’s family, says, “She would want her story to be told, to give hope and encouragement to others.”
