Diakonia UCA

Speaking words of life and love
Meet Rev Jenny Busch, Uniting Church chaplain at the
Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane.

This is holy ground and I am learning to walk tenderly and reverently in and out of rooms and families and situations. My prayer is that, somehow, my presence might remind people – sick children, family members, other visitors and staff – of the presence of Christ.

I am amazed how much I have grown spiritually since starting in the hospital in June 2016. I am drawn more fully to the life and power of Jesus to sustain my own faith and hope. While I join the families in hope and prayer for their children, it is my role to also assure them of the loving presence and power of Christ regardless of their immediate circumstances.

Although I felt called to serve at the hospital, which cares for children from across the state and even overseas, waves of panic would wash over me when I thought about some of the things I might see and experience. In my early days here, I would quietly and prayerfully walk through the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, visually and spiritually preparing my mind and body for what God might ask of me.
The first time I received a call to do an emergency baptism of a dying infant, I found myself praying not only for them but for myself. Could I do this without crying?

But as I read the words of the baptism service and owned for myself again that Christians are baptised into the death and resurrection of Christ, I realised that while many others from the hospital that day were talking to this young mum and dad about death, I had the privilege of speaking into that situation of life in God. The baptism certificate, photos, candle and commemorative Bible will forever speak to this family, and to me, of the loving, eternal power of Christ.