Conversation with Tim Siminski

Tim is the leader of Investigation of Child Maltreatment Team of Berks County Children and Youth Services. He deals particularly with cases of sexual abuse, but helps closely with departments dealing with adoption, foster care, in-home services, out of home placement, and truancy. Tim has been employed with Berks County social services for twenty-two years. Now Tim is a supervisor of the cases for the county, but for twenty years he was an investigator in the streets handling cases on his own. One logistical challenge that Tim has dealt with during his entire time in social services was the fact that there is no real schedule, the work is unpredictable just as the crimes are. Along with this comes the issue of how cases are treated, sometimes you will expect a case to be horrendous and you get to the house and the story doesn’t check out, other times you will be in a situation where you would expect no problems, and the situation is much worse than expected. The definition that the social services department uses ties them closely with county detectives because of the nature of the cases usually things that break social services codes also break crime codes. While working with the kids it is a strong point that the department makes to fix the issue in the home when possible, so that the child can stay with a relative that is not a guilty party. Removing a kid from a home and putting them an entirely new situation is not always the correct answer for every situation. He is also involved in the foster care program of Berks County. This involves placing children in the correct homes as well as making sure foster care parents check out and are properly educated.

convo with KR Mele

KR Mele

Grew up in Springdale PA in a non-Christian home. His father was involved in organized crime and his mother never showed him the love that he needed as a child. His father was in the hospital from a result all of his habits, at this time the church approached his parents and told them that only the church and God could help their lives and marriage. Today they have been married 50 years and are both serving the lord now. He graduated with a degree in business management from Penn State University. After graduation he worked at a Kay jewelers and fitness center. During this time he was living for the lord and a pastor from a local church ended up asking him to come on staff as a Pastor. This Church in Sarver PA he was a Children’s pastor and a administrator for the Christian school that the church owned. His mentor at the church taught him many important lessons; among the most important was the idea of doing family devotions and maintaining a healthy personal and family lifestyle. After a very successful time ministering at his home church in Sarver, he left to take an opportunity in state college at family life. The first nine months of ministry in state college were very tough for the family because of the great situation that they had come from. The most challenging thing he faced at state college was dealing with all of the details that come a long with a new building. It was stressful for him being in charge of something so important and totally new than anything he had done. After four years at this church he was approached about planting a church. Being on staff is a difficult thing; he was able to be successful at this by being a team player and submitting to authority. So after about four years he was able to plant the church in Penns Valley about 20 miles away from state college. He started the church with about 50 people. Church Planting boot camp really helped prepare him for ministry at the church; it allowed him to nail down his vision and real purpose of the church. He believes that meeting in a church as opposed to a building allows you to STAY focused on being outward minded as a church. Light the Night has became a main ministry tool for the church to reach out to the community. This is an opportunity to take Halloween and turn it into the ultimate outreach night all across your community.

Convo with Pastor Jack Belin-

Called to ministry at age of 5, remembers serving the lord from before than and on through his life, graduated from northeast bible institute in 1970, became a sr. pastor soon after that, was at the church for five years, and he left the church during a time of success. From there he moved to a church in the pochonos to a smaller congregation that was pretty conservative. During his time there the church moved from being conservative to charismatic. From this church he moved to Lebanon PA where he served for 9 years. This was his last sr. pastorate. During his time has a senior pastor he believed he matured a lot while he wasn’t quite sure he was maturing. His main goal was loving people for the purpose of loving them, not for making the church feel good about its self. He’s been told that during his time in Lebanon 87 percent of his congregation came to the church because of his invites of love that people in that area were not doing at that time. Another big form of ministry that he used at the church was in the hospitals. People regularly were in the emergency room and the nursery. In the emergency rooms people would help comfort families in need and in the nursery people would ask families for a picture of their new babies so that they could be prayed over. Another form of ministry that he had to get people in the church was celebrating all holidays. National teachers days, nurses day, armed services, police, fireman, EMT, celebration days were celebrated by the church so that those people got the honor they deserved. During this time of great success at the church out of nowhere he felt the call to Bolivia. This was a hard decision, he was in love with his church, he loved the community and where he was in life. But he heard the audible word of God and knew what he had to do. The call was confirmed by several people and his family went through some different routes and wound up in Bolivia! While there he encounters different complications with people groups and demographics, these are what he believes are his biggest challenges there. The problems they face there are not with people who hate Christians, like many areas of the world, but with the social unrest that is so prevalent in the area. Good quote to finish things up from him was this “the only way to change people who hate Jesus and hate you, is to truly love them”