Rev. Elizabeth Samuel
She was approved by the credentials committee and her peers to join the chaplaincy team.
Samuel is an example of the diversity in the community. She is the daughter of Dr. Aaron Samuel and wife, Nalini, who came to the U.S. from Chennai, India, in 1963. Samuel was born in Philadelphia and received her education at Bethel Baptist Christian School in Cherry Hill, N.J.
Samuel notes of her Christian ancestry that the German pietistic movement of the late 1600s inspired a Christian revival in the South Coast of India at Tranquebar.
One of Samuel’s ancestors was Aramqugam Pellia, who was a Hindu and son of a wealthy landowner. Upon his conversion, he changed his name to Aaron. Just as Aaron, the brother of Moses was ordained the first priest by the Israelites, so Indian Aaron was the fist man of non-European descent to be ordained in the Protestant church in India. This started a tradition in which all of his male descendents took the name Aaron and became ministers in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church. Samuel’s grandfather, Dr. Aaron Theodore Samuel, was the first descendent to become a medical doctor.
Samuel worked as a case manager for family dimension, a division of a child abuse prevention alliance in Lawrenceville, Ga.; as a volunteer chaplain with the chaplain, the Rev. Carl Caffrey at Signature Healthcare of Cleveland; and as a tutor at the Unity Center, a ministry of Broad Street United Methodist Church.
She is a graduate of Lee University with a bachelor of science degree in biology; the Church of God School of Theology with a master’s of arts degree in church ministries and a master’s of divinity degree.
She has served as a missionary in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with the Church of God of Loarque, which Dr. Orestis Zuniga pastored. She completed a chaplain internship at the Presbyterian hospital in Albuquerque, N.M.
“The Rev. Elizabeth Samuel comes to us with high recommendations for chaplaincy ministry. We feel fortunate to receive such a person as part of our chaplaincy program here at SkyRidge,” noted Dr. Wayne Finnell, SkyRidge Medical Center chaplaincy president.
Samuel is a member or Riverstone Church, a United Methodist community.
