February 26, 2001
Crime victims find love in arms of Texas Baptists
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--A near-suicidal crime victim collapsed into the arms of Patti Furgerson, a volunteer with Victim Relief Ministries in South Dallas.
___Furgerson--whose husband, Jim, is executive director-treasurer of Texas Baptist Men--came to the woman's apartment in response to a referral from a counseling ministry in Louisiana that had been working with her.
___"She sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably," Furgerson recalled. "It was like the dam just burst."
___Some time ago, the woman had been beaten and left for dead. Her eye socket was crushed, requiring reconstructive surgery. Her jaw was broken and had to be wired shut for two months.
___In the months that followed her brutal attack, she lost her 27-year-old son and her twin sister to cancer, and another sister was murdered. Then she received word that police in Louisiana had apprehended her attacker, but he had been released.
___"She was at the breaking point," Furgerson said.
___When the woman finally regained her composure, the volunteer asked a series of questions that identified her most immediate needs--groceries and a prescription for blood pressure medicine that needed to be filled.
___Victim Relief Ministries, an inter-denominational, faith-based program sponsored by Texas Baptist Men in cooperation with the Dallas Police Department, met those needs. Since the program was launched last year as a pilot project in one quadrant of Dallas, more than 200 families have been served.
___"Our mission is to provide a system of faith-based assistance from highly trained local church volunteers of all denominations, reaching out to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of crime victims," said Gene Grounds, director of Victim Relief Ministries.
___After Furgerson helped meet the woman's immediate needs, she made appointments for her to see a doctor at Parkland Hospital. She accompanied her to the doctor's office, the first of many such visits.
___"We really formed a relationship sitting in doctors' waiting rooms," Furgerson said.
___The Baptist volunteer learned the woman had worked as a dietician, and she desperately wanted to find meaningful work again and regain her self-sufficiency. Furgerson suggested that they check the employment opportunities board while they were at the hospital. The first job listed was in the dietary department, and Furgerson asked a woman who was passing by if she could direct them there.
___"I'm the head of that department," she replied.
___She invited the job applicant to her office for an interview, and the two women discovered they had an instant rapport. The department head told the woman about another job that had not yet been posted that was a better-paying, less-stressful position than the one for which she was applying. She got that job, and Furgerson helped her learn the bus routes from her apartment to the hospital.
___"Along the way, we talked a lot--about friends and family, about work, about likes and dislikes. And I talked with her about going back to church," Furgerson said.
___The woman had been brought up in a Christian home, but she had retreated from the church after her attack. But as she grew to know Furgerson, she became more open to the idea. She also grew eager to make new Christian friends. One day, she called Furgerson to tell her she had visited a church near where she lived.
___"There were five single ladies there who just practically adopted me," she said. "We all went out to lunch together after church, and I spent the afternoon in the home of one of them."
___As the woman became more self-sufficient, her calls to Furgerson grew less frequent. The most recent phone call was to say that she finally was about to gain closure on the event that had changed her life. Her attacker was back in custody, and she had received a subpoena to appear in a Louisiana court to testify against him.
___"This is just a microcosm of what the Lord does through people in this ministry," Furgerson told a recent meeting of the Texas Baptist Men board of directors, reporting on Victim Relief Ministries. "It's a picture of people dealing with their grief and becoming whole again."
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