James Dumas compares his job to a flashlight.

“A flashlight on a bright day isn’t very useful, but it’s certainly useful in a dark place. God brings me to dark places all the time and I’m to be the light,” he said.

Dumas is a chaplain at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville. Endorsed by the North American Mission Board, Dumas works full-time with the pastoral care department. He is also the pastor of Montgomery Heights Church in Commerce, a church he planted in 1991.

“Jesus said we are the light of the world,” Dumas said. “We don’t have to get everything exactly right, but we need to be able to stand in the darkness with people.”

That can be as simple as offering a prayer of hope for a family, and it can be as difficult as sitting with a woman as she holds her dying baby.

When Dumas heads to work in the morning, he never knows what he’ll deal with throughout the day, but he knows everything he does will have the potential to change lives.

“I consider this ministry in the trenches. We know by the demographics that thousands of people within a five-mile radius don’t attend a church anywhere. More and more we have people at the hospital with no relationship to any church or any pastor.

“Chaplains are in their lives for a small moment, but hopefully in those moments, we can point them to the Lord,” he said.

Dumas didn’t set out to be a chaplain. He graduated from college with a degree in civil engineering. He worked in Atlanta as a project manager with MARTA, then added bi-vocational pastor to his resume.

Later, he became a full-time pastor and at one point he also worked for two years with Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes.

“While I was with the Children’s Home I began to see I really enjoyed working with situations that were not always positive,” he said.

In 2001, Dumas decided to begin clinical pastoral education training. His first assignment was with long-term care.

“I thought it was an insult. I came to minister to people, not hang around old folks,” he admitted.

It wasn’t long before he changed his mind.

“After my required semester ended, I kept making visits and doing worship services [at the nursing homes]. I fell in love with the people. I discovered these folks were deacons, preachers, Sunday school teachers, song leaders. We started having communion and I even baptized one of the residents,” Dumas said.

Dumas has been working in the hospital system ever since. Recently, he was named associate director of the chaplaincy program at the Gainesville hospital.

Most people he sees come and go. Occasionally, though, he’ll hear from a former patient or a family member. Sometimes he keeps the notes that are sent to him.

One came from a daughter, written after Dumas paid a visit to her father who was disoriented and confused.

“She wrote me a note that said, ‘God led you here this morning and I’m so grateful.’”

 

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Dos and don’ts of hospital visitation

• Always knock on the door and announce yourself before going into the room. Introduce yourself to everyone in the room.

 

• Wash your hands as you come into the room and as you leave the room. Many hospitals now have a waterless hand sanitizer on the wall for people to use.

 

• Visit the most contagious person last. Plan your visits so that you minimize contamination from room to room.

 

• Don’t wear a tie. Ties can brush up against things and carry bacteria from room to room. At Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, ties are prohibited on staff members.

 

• Make your visit brief. “It’s OK to be quiet. You don’t have to fill the silence,” said James Dumas. “Don’t give answers to questions that have no answers.”

 

• Don’t assume what you should do. Ask what you can do for them.

 

• Be careful about encouraging hope. “Most preachers are fixers. We see God as a fixer and we want to fix the problem. But we have to be careful about telling people what God is going to do. Healing comes in all sorts of ways,” Dumas said.

 

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Did you know ...

James Dumas is one of more than 200 Georgia Baptist chaplains who serve in the military, hospitals, prisons, institutions and industry. Many of these chaplains, like Dumas, are endorsed by the North American Mission Board. GBC associational missions ministries assists and encourages these chaplains.

For information about GBC chaplaincy, contact Ricky Thrasher at rthrasher@gabaptist.org or (770) 936-5223 or (800) RING GBC.

 

You and your church may send your Cooperative Program gifts to:
J. Robert White, Executive Director, GBC
6405 Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth, GA 30097