Buckner & Soda Lake Association help families through counseling

April 28, 2003

Buckner & Soda Lake Association
help families through counseling
___By Russ Dilday
___Buckner News Service
___MARSHALL--In 1993, Randy Babin discovered a problem in East Texas.
___Strategic planning assessments done for Soda Lake Baptist Association, where Babin in director of missions, identified a strong need for helping families with relationship problems.
___"They had difficulties in marriages, difficulties with their children and they had a need for counseling or therapy for these," Babin reported.
___The problem was that the area had no such services available from a Christian perspective. Pastors in the area reported they had no one to whom to refer people who needed more help than they could give the

GREG Eubanks (left), program director for Buckner Children & Family Services of Northeast Texas, says the seven-year partnership between Buckner and Soda Lake Baptist Association providing counseling services in the association "has changed countless lives." Soda Lake Director of Missions Randy Babin (right) says the association's counseling ministry means there is "someone who could have a presence and ministry where our pastors could refer people with confidence to give (troubled families) some help." (Russ Dilday/Buckner Photo)

mselves.
___Associational leaders contacted Buckner Children & Fami

Before the Buckner partnership, pastors had nowhere to refer people in need of more extensive counseling.

ly Services in nearby Longview, which already offered counseling in Longview. By 1995, Soda Lake Association and Buckner had begun a unique partnership to provide professional counseling to families in the Marshall area through the Soda Lake Ministry Center.
___Now approaching its ninth year of operation, the Buckner Counseling Center in Marshall is offering what Babin describes as a "full-service counseling center for family and individual therapy."
___Buckner therapist Garrick Conner counsels there once a week, seeing nine clients each Monday and dealing, he said, "primarily with marital and family issues."
___ "The issues presented are frequently complex and wide-ranging, impacting every level of clients' lives," he explained. "Most of the couples I work with need lots of coaching just to do the little things that many often take for granted. I provide a lot of training in the areas of communication and conflict resolution and make a point to highlight the things that are going well in the marriage."
___He helps families deal with the impact of infidelity, rebuild trust and re-negotiate life and relationship priorities. He also offers help in anger management.
___Greg Eubanks, area program director for Buckner Children & Family Services of Northeast Texas, said Conner typically has 15 to 20 people in counseling at any time.
___Clients pay for services according to their ability, with the association helping those who cannot afford the full fee.
___Eubanks said Conner's credentials as a Christian counselor make him unique in the Marshall area.
___"He is a Christian therapist, a licensed counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a seminary-trained minister who has a church-staff background," Eubanks noted. "As a Christian therapist, he is a professional who comes from a Christian background and brings his Christianity into their therapy, addressing issues in the context of the Christian faith and within the compassion and the hope that is found in faith."
___Conner said he does his best "to expose my clients to the truths of Scripture and the reality of God's love. People are hungry to know that there is more to life than the problems they are currently facing. I try to help them understand how God can take their deepest hurts and most intense pain and make something good of it. That's the kind of God we serve."
___As a result of the counseling partnership, people in the Soda Lake Association area of influence "have been changed," Eubanks said.
___"There are marriages still surviving and thriving. There are individuals who have been able to go through depression or a period of anxiety, and they had somebody who could help them through.
___"There are kids who have experienced the trauma of divorce and had somebody to talk to about it," he said. "There are also kids who have been abused or neglected and come through this office who've been able to experience healing and hope.
___ "There's no magic that happens here," he explained. "There's the meeting of a group of churches in this association that care enough about their community; Buckner, who is responsive to the needs and is thankful to be invited; the Spirit of God, and the clients who come and work so hard."
___Buckner Children & Family Services currently offers some type of service in 22 Texas cities. For more information about partnership ministry opportunities, contact Buckner at (214) 758-8022
___

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