Packing List for LI Disaster Recovery Team
November 10, 2012
Cassandra Broadus-Garcia, CT District Disaster Response Coordinator, offers her packing list to the team heading to Long Island. Ask your team leader for their packing suggestions. Click title to read more...
Interview with Joseph Ewoodzie
November 09, 2012
Arthur McClanahan, of the Iowa Annual Conference and formerly from the NYAC, interviewed Joseph Ewoodzie who described the support needed and about when volunteers from outside the area will be invited to come and help. Listen to the interview>>
Photos from the recovery effort
November 09, 2012
Rev. Joanne Utley, Bridgehampton UMC and editor of The Vision, compiled some snapshots of cleanup, comfort and recovery around the New York Annual (regional) Conference. Featured are the UM churches in Massapequa, Lindenhurst, and the Church of the Village in Manhattan. See them>>
Staten Island Report - by Pastor Matt Schaeffer
November 09, 2012
Pastor Schaeffer reports on the activies for November 9, 10 and 11 on Staten Island. Click title to read more...
Tackle Misconceptions About Aging
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
November 01, 2012
I attended a symposium entitled “Embracing the Aging Experience.” All the participants were United Methodists engaged in one ministry or another to older adults. There were a great variety of approaches to such ministry. There were both subtle and not so subtle differences surrounding our common work. What struck me, despite the variety, was the common assumption that the aging experience was something to be embraced. A sense that the church needed to be about a ministry that shattered ...
Waiting May Not Be Easy, But is Reality of Our Lives
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
October 01, 2012
Every Thursday, a volunteer offers manicures to our residents at Wesley Heights. When this program began everyone, it seemed, wanted to be first and would find very creative reasons to be so. The desire to be first, to not have to wait, led to arguments among our residents. Most of the people arguing had nowhere else to go and would likely sit in the lounge, where the manicures are done, most of the morning having coffee and cookies anyway. In fact, the earliest ones to have manicures on any ...
Playing the Game Until the Last Hole
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
September 01, 2012
“Face it, we’re playing the back nine.” Although I do not play golf, I understood what he was saying. To a golfer, the phrase refers to the last nine holes played in an 18-hole round of golf. To my friend, who is the same age as I am, it had a far different meaning. He was reflecting that his game—his life—was in the last years. There was a certain wistfulness in his tone. He was clearly thinking, on some level, about his mortality. He’s always been a happy-go-lucky kind of a guy. So it was a ...
Accepting the Request to “Go Home”
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
August 01, 2012
Hattie died the other day. At 95 years of age, her last spoken word was, “I want to go home!” Her daughter leaned over to her and said, “Mom, it’s okay to go home. We’ll be okay here. Go home!” It was a poignant moment, followed very shortly by Hattie’s last breath. It was especially poignant because she had lived at the Bishop Wicke Health Center for the last two years. During that time, every conversation with Hattie began and ended with, “I want to go home. Why can’t I go home?” No amount ...
God’s Grace Helps Us More Than Survive
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
July 01, 2012
“A burden of these years is the temptation to cling to the times and things behind us rather than move to the liberating moments ahead. A blessing of these years is the invitation to go light-footed into the here and now—because we spend far too much of life preparing for the future rather than enjoying the present.” Joan Chittister, in her book, “The Gift of Years—Growing Older Gracefully,” offers this insight. Our older years are wasted if we keep looking backward, but fulfilling if we are ...
Never Underestimate the Richness of Life
Jim Stinson, Consultant on Older Adult Ministries
June 01, 2012
Elizabeth was a gem. She always had a huge grin at the ready—she loved everyone around her. Other residents adored her. She was different though, having a medical event early in her life that damaged her brain and left her thought processing slow and often quite childlike. But her personality rose above what could have been a tragedy. For whatever reason, she managed to live a full life, working as a housekeeper for the Residence for Students of St. Vincent’s Nursing School in Bridgeport, Conn. ...