Northeast
Center for Special Care is pleased to feature:
Head to Head Ministries
http://www.headtohead.org/
We start our story a long time
ago. Growing up, Paul A. Webb was an unusually bright
boy. He excelled in school and was interested in
electronics; so much so, that he became a licensed ham
radio operator at age thirteen. Paul was also a
spiritual child and at a young age he says he “accepted
Christ” and has been dedicated to his Christian
faith all of his life.
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Screenshot
of the Head
to Head Ministries
website. The site is a Christian outreach
to brain injury survivors and caregivers.
The homepage welcomes visitors with the phrase:
"The Soup Chicken of Your Soul." |
Some years later, while on active duty serving his
country in the U.S. Navy, Paul suffered a brain
injury. Paul persevered and, with determination and
his strong faith, he worked through the changes in his
life caused by his injury and earned a Bachelor of
Arts degree in economics and accounting. Among his
many accomplishments is a forty-year career as a
writer. Over the years Paul walked a difficult road,
but with the help of his wife Mary Lou and his faith,
he endured and has, by all accounts, enjoyed a
successful life.
Paul's experience caused him to identify a gap in
meeting the spiritual needs of brain injury survivors;
that led him to start up Head to Head Ministries
- a Christian outreach to brain
injury survivors and caregivers:
As
a brain injury survivor (myself) and caregiver
(my wife searching for information and help),
we realized the secular community could only
take us so far in our emotional and mental
care. They always came up "short."
We then realized that God's Word had what we
needed and we knew other brain injury
survivors and their loved-ones were searching
for the same thing. God also entreated us to
comfort others, as we have been comforted. We
started The Lamb's In Mission, Inc. as
a Christian non-for-profit organization back
in 1989. In the year 2000, we closed The
Lamb's In Mission and started a new
not-for-profit organization called Head
to Head Ministries, and have been
working it since then.
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The
Head to Head Ministries website is focused on
brain injury survivors who are Christian or who
recognize a spiritual need. This makes the site and
content very unique in the community of websites and
internet resources related to brain injury.
When
you log-onto the Head to Head Ministries
website, the first thing you are impressed with is how
substantive a site it is. There is a lot of
information posted. The right-hand column on each page
contains a menu of site content, and we are going to
focus on a sampling of sections here.
“Articles and Essays” is an expansive section that
contains articles on a variety of topics. The writers
are brain injury survivors, family members, and
pastors. The survivors talk frankly about recovering
from their injury and relying on the support they get
from their faith. In some articles the writers focus
on a particular event that was challenging and they
talk about how their faith assisted them to get past
obstacles. Besides exploring their faith, these
writers also seek to share the wisdom they acquired
from their own experiences with brain injury.
“Caregivers” is a section with articles by
caregivers of survivors written from a Christian
perspective, while “Pastors Corner” contains
articles written for pastors to aid them in their
ministry. The site contains practical information that
survivors, caregivers and church leaders can use.
There is also a section devoted to poetry composed by
survivors, as well as a gallery of original artwork.
Head to Head Ministries
also has a web version of the monthly print newsletter
entitled: "More Than Survivors,”
which is about brain injury from a Christian
perspective and is complied and edited by Phyllis
King, founder of "More Than Survivors." 19
years ago. Phyllis King, a TBI survivor, is also on
the board of directors of
Head
to Head Ministries,
Inc.
“More Than Survivors” contains original articles,
poetry, letters, reviews of books and publications
related to brain injury and other resources.
There
are many more features on the
Head to Head
Ministries website beyond what we have mentioned
here; you can explore those when you visit their site.
As you can see
Head to Head Ministries has a
specific mission to the brain injury community. We
asked Paul Webb to elaborate on its purpose and he
told us:
It
is our purpose to reach out to the isolated
community of brain injury survivors and
caregivers with the hope that is in Christ. We
can let them know that others have walked the
walk they walk; that they are not alone. We want
to bring together a community of brain injury
survivors reaching out to others, by sharing
their testimonies on how God has cared for them.
It is our aim to educate and edify the church
community on the needs of the brain injury
community and how they can reach out and help
them. We want to help remove the fear of brain
injury that comes from ignorance, and we seek to
stir hearts to compassion.
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Another
interesting feature of the Head to Head Ministries
website is its guestbook. If you have doubt about how
valuable a Christian-based website about brain injury
could be; you can read page after page of comments by
visitors who are believers, or who are searching for
spiritual answers - both brain injury survivors and
caregivers - people who have identified with this site
and what it offers. In this sense Paul Webb and everyone
associated with Head to Head Ministries have
helped to fill a void in people lives. Webb commented on
the feedback the site has received from its many
visitors: "It is a great encouragement to us and to
our work."
Besides all the spiritual resources posted on the Head
to Head Ministries website there is also general
information about brain injury and links to a host of
internet resources. For people of faith, especially
Christians, whether a TBI survivor, family member,
friend, or pastor, Head to Head Ministries is an
important resource to know about. Reading their
guestbook postings you realize how brain injury
transcends so many things, including religious belief,
and how great a need there is for support by different
groups of people.
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Paul and Mary Lou Webb founders of Head
to Head Ministries,
- a unique organization and website providing
support to individuals with brain injury from a
Christian perspective.
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Brain injury survivors have a lot to teach to all of us
about recovery. There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned
from the experiences shared on the
Head to Head
Ministries website; whether you are a Christian or not,
no matter what your belief system is. The lessons of
people surviving brain injury and negotiating life’s
challenges are universal.
Paul Webb has uniquely contributed to the needs brain
injury survivors, their families, their churches, and
their pastors by establishing Head to Head Ministries.
Please take the time to visit them on the web. It’s
our website of the month for June 2008 and they are just
a click away; don’t forget to bookmark them so you can
visit again.
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Disclaimer:
Reference in this web site to any specific
organizations, commercial products, process, service,
manufacturer, or company does not constitute its
endorsement or recommendation by Northeast Center for
Special Care.
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