Scott Swanson
Last summer, a rural hillside home outside Sweet Home caught fire on a Sunday morning.
When a newspaper photographer arrived, soon after the alarm sounded, he saw one of the homeowners at the base of their steep driveway. Speaking with her was a sturdily built man wearing a white helmet with a cross on it: Chaplain Pete Taraski.
When severe accidents occur, Taraski is frequently present, reassuring family members as rescuers do their jobs.
When Gayle Ispas’ home on 3rd Avenue burned on Oct. 5, 2013, Taraski was there, helping her deal with a chaotic situation.
In fact, in the last few years, he’s been there at a wide variety of calls to which Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District personnel have responded: fires, crashes, rescues, a drowning.
Also a local pastor, Taraski said his chaplaincy activities are part of his calling.
“To me, ministry’s always been out and about – getting involved in the community,” he said. “The Bible tells us to go to the people within your gate and this is my gate: my community.”
Taraski, 53, came to Sweet Home in 2012 after running a ministry for the homeless in the Houston, Texas area for several years.
Born and raised in Newark, N.J., Taraski became a carpenter specializing in “high-end, architectural millwork.” He met his wife Nelia in Monterey, Mexico while working on a construction project there in the early 1990s. They moved to Texas in 1994, settling in Cut And Shoot, a town near Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston.
Taraski said he was “a Christian” back then, “but I wasn’t dedicated.”
“There’s a point that you really get it, that you change. That was later in my life.”
In the early 2000s he developed a concern for the homeless and needy in the Houston area. That resulted in the founding of Yahweh Street Ministries, named after the most reverent Hebrew word for God, to serve the homeless in Montgomery County, Texas.
“We started off with homeless ministries but we went further than that,” he said. The organization eventually grew to include prison ministries, work with juveniles, street evangelism, Bible studies, and organization of the National Day of Prayer and LifeChain activities in Conroe.
“We did a lot of things,” Taraski said. “We ended up with 21 different outreaches. God really blessed that ministry. Their activities drew heavy media coverage.
“We got churches out and got churches involved,” he said. “Things like LifeChain. We did LifeChain down there and it stretched for 2½ miles. We had over 600 people for National Day of Prayer.”
Meanwhile, Taraski had started taking online training and weekend courses from Southwestern Theological Seminary.
In 2006 he was ordained as a pastor, though “I’d already been preaching under bridges for years.”
After planting a Southern Baptist church, he got interested in the chaplaincy ministry.
“I saw a need for it,” he said. “People were hurting and I was trying to fulfill that need.”
He earned chaplaincy certification through the Federation of Fire Chaplains and the Texas Corps of Fire Chaplains and, in 2008, began serving as a chaplain with the Conroe Fire Department. He also served as a disaster relief chaplain for the Southern Baptist Convention.
In June of 2012, the Taraskis and their three children, Mark, Noah and Genesis, moved to Sweet Home.
Taraski didn’t give a lot of details about the reason for the move or why they ended up in Sweet Home, where he became pastor of Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church at 1042 Pleasant Valley Road.
“It was God. I was living the ministry and God pulled us up here,” he said.
Once here he also plunged back into work as a chaplain.
“After doing it in Conroe, the first thing was to keep doing it,” Taraski said.
His work as a chaplain has multiple facets, he said.
On one side he deals with the community – victims, but he also serves emergency response workers.
“At a house fire or something, I’m making sure they’re staying hydrated, that they’re not burned out or stressed. They have a different job. They’re living through each one of these situations just as the people are. They need someone to be there for them.”
He counsels victims and their families, watching body language and staying alert for signs of trauma.
“That’s a big one,” he said. “There’s lots of different angles to it. One thing about a chaplain is presence. Sometimes all I do is just be present. If family and friends are there, that’s what’s really needed. If they aren’t, I try to be there.”
Part of his job is helping victims negotiate the system – helping them find food, shelter and clothing. Sometimes he helps with funeral arrangements. He serves as coordinator between the department and the Linn County Fire Corps, formerly known as Trauma Intervention Program (TIP), which organizes volunteers to respond to help victims during times of need such as fires, deaths and other emergencies.
He coordinates support for firefighters and rescue workers and is available to perform funerals for fallen firefighters.
He also follows up with victims or their families following death or other tragedies.
“I see how they’re doing, how they’re moving forward.”
Ispas, whose home caught fire in the fall of 2013, said Taraski’s presence at the scene was “helpful.”
“It was just a wild time,” she said. Ispas said she had just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage 2 breast cancer and was in the process of scheduling surgery when the fire occurred.
“I remember (Taraski) came over and he was talking to me,” she said. “I was sitting in my car because, for a while, I thought my little dog had perished. I was an absolute wreck. Pete was very kind. My brain was fried.”
The dog was eventually located, alive, under a deck in her back yard, she said.
What Taraski does is not only varied, but somewhat rare.
“There are not a lot of chaplains in Oregon,” he said.
Fire Chief Dave Barringer was not yet in that position when Taraski started with SHFAD, but he said the presence of the chaplain helps everyone.
Taraski makes regular visits to the fire house, at least once a week, to check in with the chief and other personnel.
“He typically brings in pastries,” Barringer noted. “He’s really worked on having relationships with all of us, seeing what we need, what we need him for.”
Nearly all of what Taraski does is on a volunteer basis, the chief said. Volunteer personnel, which is how the chaplain is designated, make $12 a call.
“He’s not making $10,000,” Barringer said. “Obviously, he’s not showing up for the money.
“He’s very proactive. Anything I’ve asked him to look into, he’s done. I’ll ask where people are emotionally and he’ll go and check.”
Taraski also is someone the chief can vent to when he needs to, he said.
“He’s super understanding and an extremely good listener,” Barringer said. “He’s upbeat, and that helps. I think his role really allows us to do our role better because we don’t have to deal with the emotional side. If he handles that, we can do our job better and when we go on to the next call, we’re not as hung up on the last one.”
He said the department is working on “crisis intervention strategies” and he’s planning to send Taraski to training that he has already undergone on “how we deal with things, how people are affected around here” after traumatic events.
“It’s not good for me to be the only one running around, saying ‘Is everybody OK?’” Barringer said.
Firehouse volunteer work is becoming a family affair for the Taraski household, Pete Taraski said.
Nelia, who has been director of Little Promises children’s program and preschool since the fall of 2013, has begun getting involved in helping Pete.
“My wife comes out on fires too,” he said. “She’s fixing to go to chaplaincy training.”
Both their teenage sons are volunteer firefighters.
“It’s turned into a family business,” Pete Taraski said.