| New Buddies program meets to bring solace to survivors BY LINDA WORTHINGTONUMCONNECTION STAFF Who can one turn to when a spouse dies? In an effort to answer that question, the Baltimore-Washington Conference Board of Pensions and Health Benefits formed Buddies, a new support group.  Under the leadership of Evelyn Chesnutt, the group, whose members include clergy, clergy spouses and surviving spouses, is organized to provide personal support to a grieving spouse at the time of death.
When she learns that a pastor has died, Chesnutt asks someone in the group from that persons district to call on the surviving spouse. Since the last meeting more than a dozen families have been contacted, she said. Early this spring, about 20 people attended a second meeting of Buddies at Glen Mar UMC in Ellicott City. They came with questions and suggestions of how to be supportive to surviving spouses. When the group originally met last fall, questions about pension benefits available to the widow (or widower) when the retired pastor dies were uppermost in peoples minds. This time around, after experiences during the previous six months had informed some of the members, they had suggestions to make. Members of Buddies are expanding the programs areas of concern. Im wondering about contacting persons who are seriously ill, said the Rev. Marcus Earp. As the members shared some of their personal stories and concerns, it was obvious that Earp was on track. Several were suffering from long-term illnesses, either themselves or within their immediate families. I called a widow whom Id known before, said Esther Peck. She was a quiet person but she wanted the chance to talk. I did nothing but listen. Im concerned about friends who havent thought about the day when they will be widowed, said Evelyn White, who lived in the same community for 80 years and recently moved in with a son, changing her church membership to Asbury UMC in Washington. We need to be aware of the things that need to be known. Her comment led the group into a wider direction and before the meeting was over, they created a task force, developed a tentative list of the kinds of things they wanted survivors to know and worked out a plan to carry it through. The Rev. Steward Frazier will coordinate the information. Pensions and Health Benefits staff, Carole Silberhorn and Linda Gamble, reminded the group of the process to follow when a spouse dies. The family member should inform the conference office, Silberhorn said. The information travels several paths to the General Board of Pensions and Health Benefits, the bishops office, the district superintendents office and the office of communications. Silberhorn pointed out that both Social Security and United Methodist pension checks are paid out in advance, that is, a month ahead. Depending on when a person dies, sometimes those checks have to be paid back. There are big changes in how information is handled in pensions and health benefits, all based on new federal privacy regulations called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, Silberhorn said. Beginning April 1, much of the information about a deceased person, previously available to a caller, will be met with a polite, Im sorry, we cant tell you, Silberhorn said. She explained that with the changes in privacy laws, for her office to pass along certain information, even the cause of death, would be a federal offense. I could go to jail, she said. The same rules may not apply to the communications office, she said, where the reports of deaths of clergy or their spouses in the e-connection or in the form of obituaries in the UMConnection, will often state the cause of death. | 
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