Public Safety Ministries is dedicated to serving all of the public safety professions; police, fire and EMS. We are also engaged with our military partners through a variety of formal and informal relationships. However, due to my background and the professional relationships I’ve established over the past 30 years, the majority of my time is spent with the law enforcement community. Recently I was asked to consider establishing a more formal relationship with a fire service organization, The Minnesota Fire Service Foundation (MFSF). I’ll not go into detail today about that organization since I am in the process of learning about the different fire organizations and associations. In some ways they are different from the law enforcement groups I work with, but I’m learning that the similarities are more common than the differences.
That being said, I was approached by the foundation requesting some information about my perspective on public safety retiree funerals. We had a good exchange of information and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations. Through this process I learned of the death of the retired Marshall MN Fire Chief, David Marks. I have been associated with quite a few funerals since I started this ministry, but not so many related to the fire service. I have a couple of connections to folks in Marshall so I thought this would be a good opportunity to hit the road and gain some first hand insights. Since I wasn’t involved in the planning (which is always very involved and more extensive than you can imagine) I’m not going to comment on anything more than what I experienced as an attending member of the public. And my review – it was a wonderful experience! Funerals are tough, all involved struggle with finding that balance between celebrating life and the realities of grieving our losses. Those who coordinated the service: the funeral home, the church, the families (both personal and professional) put on a really nice event. I met some very good people through this experience and I look forward to furthering those relationships!
A Postscript:
One of the pleasures I have in the work I do is that I get to go on the road and experience Minnesota. I am a city kid. Born and raised and educated into my adulthood in Minneapolis. I moved to the country for work and housing as an adult (ok, Eden Prairie and Excelsior may not be the “country”, but they had corn and critters so that was rural to me). Here are a few photos of the Marshall MN road trip. It was an enjoyable journey as well as a destination. Here are a few visuals of my trip…
A very enjoyable day On The Road! Marshall MN
Take Care, Pr. Dan
