rebel rev becomes a travel advisor

As I’ve mused before the role of a chaplain can be extremely varied. One particular patient brought to me some of that variety. She had just arrived in this country from South Africa. She was staying in a hotel near Westminster. This was some distance from my hospital.

On her first day trip out she decided to come to visit some of the historic sites in Greenwich. Unfortunately she fell as she stepped off the bus and badly broke her leg. She was travelling with her sister. Her sister was getting a cab each day from Westminster to the hospital because she was scared of travelling on her own in a foreign country and wouldn't get on a train or a tube. Her money was beginning to run out and they were due to move from the hotel in a few days on to the next leg of their journey (pardon the pun) She did not want to leave her sister, so needed to find out about a local hotel. I became the families travel advisor. I found hotels and then B and B’s for her two daughters when they arrived. I checked tubes and buses and travel routes and supplied them to the family. They were extremely grateful.

As someone who likes to travel and experience other cultures I imagined how awful it would be to be in that situation. I felt it was really important to give this family as much hospitality as possible. Hospitality is actually one of the best tools in the chaplain’s toolkit.

Several years later a member of my own family fell and broke her leg bady while we were holidaying in the Canary Isles. I felt very alone during that time of travelling back and forth to the hospital and having to change hotels and not speak the language. i could've done with a friendly chaplain. Again it reitereated to me the importance of being prepared to be a travelling companion to people who are suffering for as long as they need you.