Students complete trauma response training ahead of trips to hurricane-ravaged sites in Florida

This month, Liberty University will be sending two teams to Englewood, Fla. (Nov. 6-12 and Nov. 13-19), in partnership with Samaritan’s Purse, to help with cleanup efforts from Hurricane Ian. To prepare students for those trips and others in the future, LU Serve Now, the university’s disaster relief program, has begun offering Trauma Basic Workshops with Liberty psychology professor and trauma specialist Dr. Jeanne Brooks.

While the trips will involve physical cleanup tasks, students will also have the chance to interact with the families they are helping, so the workshops are designed to give them general knowledge on how to personally serve their emotional, behavioral, and spiritual needs.

“When a Serve Now team deploys, they are typically engaging with people who have been through a traumatic experience, and we want to be prepared to work and minister well in such situations,” Serve Now Director Chad Nelson said. “A significant aspect of the Serve Now culture is that of preparedness. Being prepared when going into disaster response and crisis situations is so important.”

So far, two workshops have been offered this semester, and more are planned in the spring.

In each session, Brooks highlighted multiple examples of trauma, citing stories of people whose homes had burned down and referencing her own story of losing her husband many years ago. She described the feeling of experiencing trauma like being a stationary point inside a snow globe that has been shaken up, leaving a person feeling immobile and “stuck” as life whirls out of control.

“Thanks to Dr. Brooks, the students of this program have some incredible insight about how to be compassionate, to empathize, and to speak truth over someone while letting God take hold of their grief,” said sophomore Ashley MurphyLU Serve student staff. “This workshop really enables our members to act with love and understanding as they are faced with emotionally difficult situations on deployment. I cannot wait to see what comes of it.”

Brooks also shared the story of Job, the faithful servant of the Lord who underwent some of the most gruesome and heart-wrenching pain of any human in history, losing his children, possessions, and health in a short period of time. Despite the adversity and grief, Job never forsook God, Brooks said, reminding the students that no matter what happens, trusting that God is good and that He will not abandon us is crucial to maintaining hope.

“What really stuck out to me is that you really have to let that person work through the stages of trauma and the experience and not just give them a Bible verse,” said senior business student Owen Bruns, who will go on the second trip to Florida and plans to travel overseas for humanitarian aid work after graduating in May.

Senior criminal justice student Kandis Spratley traveled to Kentucky with LU Serve Now last year to mud out homes and tear down damaged dry wall and is excited to see how the trauma training helps her serve alongside Bruns in Florida.

“I think this training helps us see and understand that there are different types of trauma and it affects each person in a different way,” Spratley said. “That helps us as we go to serve, to realize that we aren’t going in to fix (their lives), but rather to have a heart that just wants to listen and love on them.”

“We just want to love them,” she added, “and be able to say, ‘Hey, we want to help you in this way, in this moment of time, and all we can worry about is (serving) right now, but what you need to worry about is healing, working through the trauma, and processing.’”

The LU Serve Now program seeks to build the best culture of preparedness while equipping students with the knowledge and skills to capably assist in catastrophic disasters and community development. For more information, visit the LU Serve website or email luservenow@liberty.edu.