Intensive Franciscan Care
(At 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 29, Ed Gura clocked out of a 12-hour shift at Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center for the final time. After 16 years as an ICU nurse – one of the most demanding jobs imaginable – Ed is taking a sabbatical to discern his next ministry. We asked him how the work in Hazard and the people of Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Community have impacted his life.)
BY ED GURA, OFM
Dr. Mitchell Wicker and Br. Ed Gura, OFM
My last two weeks at the hospital in Hazard were a roller coaster ride of emotions with little sleep, many conversations, lots of pictures and a few tears. For these past 16 years I have felt the support of so many good and caring friends who have taught me something about love and compassion. Together we have shared the joy and pain and sorrow of ICU patient care. On especially intense nights I have felt their presence and helpfulness. I will long remember and miss their friendship, conversation and the lighter moments that kept us going.
And to think: If not for a wrong turn, it might never have happened.
It began when I graduated from St. Xavier University School of Nursing in Chicago in 1996. I found myself at a crossroads with an uncertain future, asking the question, “What next, Lord?” The answer that came to me was Hazard, Ky.
Pastoral Associate Pat Riestenberg
I first found Hazard after making a wrong turn in 1994 while I was driving to Chicago. That led to a three-hour visit with the friars and Pastoral Associate Pat Riestenberg at Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church. That’s what first led me to think about living and ministering in the mountains. Following graduation in 1996 I felt a stronger sense of calling to Hazard. Under normal conditions I would have been asked by our Provincial Council to remain in Chicago until I found work there or elsewhere. But due to unusual circumstances – our Religious House of Studies closed, I needed a place to go and felt a calling to Hazard – I received the blessing and support of the friars to come here.
I arrived in Hazard in 1996 without a job, yet trusting things would work out for the best. But after several months and several interviews for jobs, all of which required nursing experience, I was beginning to lose hope. Then one of the interviewing nurses on one of those interviews offered this advice: “Don’t lose heart, keep the faith, and trust that God has brought you here for a reason – and that the job meant for you is still being created.”
Br. Ed Gura, OFM, with fellow nurses at ARH Regional Medical Center
Seven months after I arrived in Kentucky, I received a call from Hazard ARH Hospital and was offered a position as a float nurse. More graces soon led me to a position on ICU. It is there and at MGCC Church where I have been blessed in my nursing and parish ministry and in the richness of many friendships. It has been 16 years of knowing and believing that this indeed was the place where God was leading me all along.
It is also a place where I have grown as a Franciscan Brother through the ministry of providing concern, compassionate care and generosity to the needy and the suffering as seen among my families at MGCC Church and the Hazard ARH Hospital. Their love has strengthened mine. Such concern for the less fortunate here and in distant lands reminds me of how St. Francis did the same when meeting the lepers of his time. They were the outcasts of society in the 13th century; yet instead of walking away from them, Francis walked toward them and embraced them. Both he and they were forever changed. My life has also been changed because of God’s people at Hazard ARH Hospital and at Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Community. Hazard will always be home to me, and its people will always be my family.
Br. Ed Gura, OFM, Fr. Mike Chowning, OFM, and Br. Mike Dubec, OFM, serve at Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Hazard, KY.
(From Jan. 28-May 26, Ed Gura will attend a Ministry to Ministers sabbatical program given by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in San Antonio, Texas. “It is my hope that this time of sabbatical will be a time of rest, prayer and discernment,” he says.)
This text was originally in the SJB News Notes edited by Toni Cashnelli.
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