JOYFUL Nursing Home Ministry

GOD blesses me and our entire team each week as we hold "Church" in a local nursing home. We can go in there tired (as we are all senior citizens whose bodies call for afternoon naps), depressed, physically in pain, or any other condition and it is amazing how these things disappear during this ministry!

We have been doing this ministry for FOUR years....every Sunday...and it continues to be pure JOY. I often think, I would like to be a chaplain of a Nursing Home were I can get even More involved in their lives, but for now.......THIS is a blessing.

Today's lesson was on Genesis 40. This is where Joseph is in prison, and he interprets the Butler's and the Baker's dream. I dressed up two of our helpers for the visuals. It was alot of fun!

We do alot of things that are fun......and I am so thankful that the LORD opened this ministry for us. It is not a chore, it is all JOY.

Husband raised the dead!

My husband amazes me. He is so very talented. We had been thinking about each of us getting a puppet to add to the Nursing Home Ministry. Our Puppet team (Ed and Anne Kelm), go North for the summer and the residents miss them.

As we were walking around the Classic Car show in the Downtown Circle, I looked in a window of a store and they had a generous display of 28 inch full bodied puppets. Ken opened the door. We walked around and around looking at all the puppets. They had clown puppets, girl puppets with different color hair, boy puppets with different color hair, sculpted puppets dressed in motorycle clothes, and puppets dressed as brides, doctors, pirates etc. We walked around and around wondering if any of these puppets would be suited for us.

THEN my husband put his arm in one, and IMMEDIATELY the puppet came to life! My husband changed voices and he talked with this puppet as if he had known him for years. It was truly remarkable! He had chosen the Grandpa puppet.

His decision helped me to know which puppet I should get. I certainly needed the Grandma, so we are a couple. This will be sweet as we minister in a Nursing Home every Sunday afternoon. The winter puppet team has young children puppets, so in the Summer the change to senior citizens will be good.

We left the store with Ken's puppet in his hand, and together they finished walking among the classic cars. Someone even took a picture of them. He was so comical!

The store owner said he would have to order the grandma and it will be here in a few days.

Now we need to find CD - Christian music........song by old folks instead of children!

ANYWAY, the point is.......our lives are basically without meaning and purpose until the day we receive Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we become NEW CREATIONS! We truly know what it means to live. So much like the visual I saw before my very eyes tonight. One minute the puppet was lifeless amid many other lifeless puppets, and the next minute he is full of life and personality......and he will be used of the LORD.

[Anyone have any unused puppets, send them our way! Hubby is good with marinettes too :)]