Stephens joins Ann Mills in Paducah, Kentucky, and the Rev. Jim Wilkinson in Louisville, Kentucky, to coordinate SCI's pastoral care network along 2,200 miles of America's inland waterways.

"Pam's home base at SCI's Houston Center will mean that the resources of the institute are available to her as she provides pastoral care to more river and coastal mariners working in this region" said the Rev. David Rider, SCI's executive director, in a news release.  "A ministry of presence in the Gulf Region will take her from the bayous of Texas and Louisiana to the everglades of Florida,"
 
Stephens work in information technology for the past 13 years, which supported her love of music and a growing ministry in the Episcopal Church. A church organist since her college days, Stephens became certified as a lay minister in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio and has served in several capacities over the past decade.

"A major conversion experience about six years ago seemed to kick into high gear my desire to do more as a lay minister," said Stephens.

She began the masters program in pastoral care at College of Mount St Joseph in Cincinnati. That experience led to joining the chaplain residency program at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston 2006 where she ministered to cancer patients and their families.

Born in Montana, raised in California, and most recently from Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived for 13 years, Stephens understands the challenges of leaving the familiar but looks for "the common chords," the release said. She found those chords after completing her bachelor and master degrees in music from California State University, Chico, and Stanford University.

"Music is a common denominator among people; we all listen to it and many of us play it, so it helps bring people together as well," said Stephens. "I'm planning on taking my harmonica on every vessel visit -- I should be able to find a tune for any kind of music."

Founded in 1834 and affiliated with the Episcopal Church, the Seamen's Church Institute of New York and New Jersey (SCI) is the largest, most comprehensive mariners' agency in North America, according to the news release. Annually, its chaplains visit 3,400 vessels in the Port of New York and New Jersey and along 2,200 miles of America's inland waterways. SCI's maritime education program provides navigational training to nearly 1,600 mariners each year at simulator-based facilities located in Houston, Texas and Paducah, Kentucky. SCI and its maritime attorneys are recognized as leading advocates for merchant mariners by the U. S. Government as well as the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labor Organization, and maritime trade associations.