ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
Austin Corona, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Charla Belinski, a 30-year Roaring Fork Valley local and associate pastor at Snowmass Chapel, was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer on the same day she submitted her doctoral thesis at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina in March.
A long-time member of the Snowmass Chapel’s staff, Belinski’s diagnosis threatened to interrupt her growth as a faith leader. Despite her ongoing battle with the disease, however, Belinski will take on the church’s highest ministry position this week. Assuming a new leadership role at this time, she said, signifies her belief that “the worst thing is never the last thing” and that “there is always something to look forward to.”“I have been involved in church my whole life in some capacity, and I just wanted to know more and do more,” Belinski said in a phone interview while driving to Houston. “It was just about following that little voice that was saying, ‘Yep, this is what you need to do and just see where it goes.’ And this is where it led.”
Belinski, who is currently beginning radiation treatment at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, will return briefly to the Roaring Fork Valley on Sunday to be formally installed in her new position as senior pastor.
Belinski has worked for Snowmass Chapel, an inter-denominational church in Snowmass Village with an average of 180 Sunday attendees, since she became the chapel’s Director of Children, Youth and Families in 2010. Before joining the church, Belinski served eight years on the Aspen School District Board of Education, and she currently sits on the board of YouthZone, a Glenwood Springs-based nonprofit serving teens and young adults.
In the last 13 years, Belinski has taken on progressively greater leadership responsibilities with Snowmass Chapel. In 2017, she graduated with a master’s degree from Denver’s Iliff School of Theology and became the chapel’s associate pastor. Now, as a newly minted doctor of ministry, Belinski can take formal leadership of the church in her new role. Belinski’s predecessor, Robert de Wetter, retired in October.
But on the day she graduated with her doctorate — the final milestone in over six combined years of religious education — Belinski said she was struggling to maintain the relentless positivity her colleagues and friends know her for. She began her first round of chemotherapy in April at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, and the physical side effects kept her from attending her graduation service in North Carolina a month later.
Sitting in her living room in Colorado, Belinski watched her Duke classmates accept their diplomas through a computer screen, according to a blog post published in May. Belinski wrote that her only consolation was that “those adorably dorky velvet doctoral tams wouldn’t have fit on my beautiful bald head anyway.”
On the day she received her diagnosis, Belinski said she sat on her couch, staring out the window, thinking about how to maintain hope. The relief and joy after three years of crafting her dissertation quickly “took a back seat.” At that point, Belinski said she realized she was facing a period where she would need to be incredibly strong.
“Cancer treatment is hard,” Belinski said. “Graduation was hard emotionally. Other things were hard physically.”
Ultimately, however, Belinski said the pain of these moments has been a struggle, but optimism and strength have never left her.
“There have been plenty of tears, but that's a good thing,” Belinski said. “I think the tears are a way of acknowledging that something's out of whack. There's a little bit of grief that comes with it. We all go through such hard things. And I would say we are so much stronger than we think we are. … We often just don't know it until we're in the thick of something really hard and we have no choice but to just keep going through it.”
Belinski continued her chemotherapy treatment through November. In August, Belinski underwent surgery to remove the cancerous cells her chemotherapy had not already taken care of. She said the operation removed “all the cancer.”
As is typical with ovarian cancer, however, Belinski said the disease has made a recurrence. Her radiation therapy in Houston is meant to “help get rid of what remains … and then hopefully, that’ll do the trick.”
Belinski said she will still be able to work for the chapel remotely while going through radiation treatment.
Throughout her cancer treatment, Belinski said her family, community, medical team and congregation have been a deep well of support.
“Tim (Belinski’s husband) has been the best partner ever. And my kids are my life and I adore them and they have been amazing,” Belinski said.
Churchgoers and staff at Snowmass Chapel have distributed teal “Pray for Charla” bracelets — teal commonly symbolizes ovarian cancer awareness — and started a blog to update community members on Belinski’s progress. Belinski said the church itself has shown an outpouring of love and strength for her.
“This is not something I could do alone. This is not something that I was strong enough to just figure out. It took an entire team of doctors and support team and family and friends and the community,” Belinski said.
At the same time, Belinski said she has constantly felt the presence of God by her side during her battle.
“Laying in those PET scan machines and getting ready to be wheeled into surgery, and even just laying on my couch in pain, all those times I just think, yes, I'm surrounded by people who love me, but I am also spiritually never alone,” Belinski said.
In her new role, Belinski said she hopes to use her perspective as a woman to foster an environment at the chapel that is inviting and inclusive. After her installation service, Belinski will become Snowmass Chapel’s first female senior pastor.
“We know what it's like to be told that we can't do something. … There are a lot more women leading churches than there ever were before, but I think because we know what that's like to be held back, we tend to be a little bit more open to all people,” Belinski said.
Belinski added that churches have gotten a “bad rap” in recent years for having harmed, and sometimes failed to welcome, “people from different groups or lifestyles.” Nonetheless, she said Snowmass Chapel is an open community, and she hopes to “bust in the doors” and show people that a church can be an inviting, welcoming space.
While at Duke, Belinski said she wrote her doctoral thesis on the subject of “unity” and the role Christian churches play in bringing disparate groups of people together.
“Christian churches in particular can be a model for the broader community, in how to work with diversity of thought and diversity of perspectives and belief system,” she said.
Though her dissertation took a back seat to her cancer diagnosis last year, she said she hopes to return to it after her treatment is done and publish it as a book.
“I've had a little bit of a different focus for the past year, so I haven't done that yet, but it's still in the back of my mind,” she said.
Belinski’s installation service will take place in the Snowmass Chapel on Sunday at 9 a.m. The event is public and open to everyone.