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.

Awesome Lord's Day

Today has been an Awesome Lord's Day and it is not yet over. I, along with so many people, have suffered from allergies/sinus all week- so it felt good to be in the House of the LORD even though we all had fragile voices, and low energy levels. Something powerful about the family of God being together.

I was so thankful the LORD brought in three children today for our SS class. They are little ones so we talked about the letter "A". Today it stood for ALL (for all have sinned - Romans 3:23) and for ANTS (Proverbs 6:6). We colored a big letter "A" Then glued raisins around the outline of the letter that represented ANTS. We acted like ants as we carried things on our back all around the table. When our load fell off, we could not be lazy, but be like ants, pick up our load and continue on. We also made an ant hill from a triangle that we covered with crushed graham cracker and had paper ants to glue around the hill- along with the words of Proverbs 6:6. The craft was fun - especially the crushing of the graham cracker that was inside a baggy. I used empty medicine bottles as our crushers. It worked nicely. It is hard for me to teach such little ones, but I also appreciate the S-T-R-E-T-C-H of three littles ones and not twenty. :)

This afternoon was our Nursing Home Ministry. That is always such a joy. Last week was the first time we canceled it in over two years. But too many of our team was sick, including me.
Today I talked about PRAYER. We played a recording of the song: The Lord's Prayer and I signed it to the people. Then I read the Lord's Prayer to them from Matthew 6 and Luke 11. This gave them three opportunities to HEAR and refresh in their minds the words that most of them knew. WE then recited the prayer together as a group. Then I had several prayers written by children. I read each one and we discussed how cute it sounds when you know a child has prayed it, but how we as adults often tell God how to do things, or make suggestions, or ask for things that are not to our best interest. The residents responded well as the simple prayers helped to connect their childness with their adultness. [I teach the Bible lesson to the assisted living unit and then I teach to the demenia unit]. We recited the Lord's prayer again and this time they were saying it with more meaning and it was a thrill to sense they have connected with the Word of God today.

So far it has been a powerful Lord's Day. The sermon this morning was powerful on Psalm 85. What a JOY to interpret the Word of God as my Husband preaches. God is so full of mercy, grace, love, compassion, righteousness and Truth! And the day is not over!

We have to ASK!

I just got back from our Nursing Home ministry. What a JOY this ministry is. We have two teams. One goes to the assisted living section. The other team ministers in the Dementia unit. What a joy each are and yet so very different. I am the "StoryTeller" in both groups.

Since the Bible lesson today was from John 2, I brought in my wedding album. In the assisted Living section they really enjoyed looking at my pictures and talking about my wedding...then I went into the lesson how Jesus, his mother and some of the disciples were among the guests at a wedding in Cana. This is the first miracle Jesus did, and it is always a hard one to teach. As a good Baptist (smile) I would have preferred Jesus to change the water to milk, or punch or juice, but instead he didnt change the menu, he reproduced more of what they had run out of - wine. The Master of Ceremonies even described it as being the best wine ever.

Today as I was teaching, the Lord highlighted a different part of the account for me to see. Jesus didn't do anything, make any changes ,until someone had asked him to - which was his mom. But after his mom told Jesus about the problem, Jesus then intervened and saved the bride and bridegroom from embarrassment and shame.

So with us, when we get outselves into situations that would be embarrassing or shameful, situations where we cannot see the way out- IF WE GO TO GOD- He will intervene on our behalf- but he only uses what we offer him. He didnt bring in jars of wine, he used the empty jars that were already there. He used what was around him, what was already there, then he put the final touches on it- HIS touch that made all the difference!

I imagine myself being the servant and Jesus telling me to dip into the jar of water and give a cup to the master of ceremonies. I would be scared to death! I would possibly decline his request. I would for sure obey with fear and trembling afraid that the master of ceremonies would be upset when I handed him a cup of water. But Mary had told the servants to obey every word he said, and they obeyed....and they had the privilege of giving the Master of Ceremonies the biggest blessing and surprise he had that day!

So many times we have issues, and we just see the impossibility of it all. We are overwhelmed by our situation and cannot see the way out. . . .we may ask people to pray, we may say that we need to pray but so often we do not ACTUALLY PRAY. Oh how our lives would be different if we would just trust and obey! Jesus LOVES to restore what is gone from our lives, our marriages, our families, our finances, our health, etc. Jesus cares about us, BUT WE MUST TELL HIM and ASK HIM FOR HELP.

Jesus is worthy of our trust.

He will answer us, but we must tell him the situation and ask for his help. Then His touch will be life changing!