Home Visits, Thanksgiving, and Giving Tuesday

It has been a little over three months of my life in Cincinnati. Some parts have been hard and some parts have been very easy. I've found joy and I've found frustrating challenges, but I recognize that all is working together to make me a better person in 2019 than I was in 2018. And that's what life is all about.

This month I went on 14 home visits. I've said it before, but home visits are my absolute favorite part about my job. It brings me such joy to visit our seniors in their homes, to talk with them, to hear about what's going on in their lives and offer a listening ear. It isn't up to me to judge their situations. It isn't up to me to question how they live their lives or what choices they made to land them where they are. The only thing that's up to me is to be Jesus to them. What a gift.

Two days before Thanksgiving I made 10 stops. One of them was to visit Dorothy, whose real name is actually Flossie Jean. Dorothy hates being called Flossie because she has two sisters also named Flossie: Flossie May and Flossie Jo. Whoever knows where she got Dorothy but if you remember to call her by that name she'll love you forever. Dorothy's mama is turning 96 on Thanksgiving, and Dorothy is trying really hard to get up to see her, because her oldest sister died and her mama really wants to see Dorothy. But she had a stroke and uses a walker, and there is nobody around to come and get Dorothy to take her up to see her mama. She feels pretty sad that there's nobody to get her and that so few of her relatives are still living. On the way out I told her, "Well Dorothy, you're still here and that makes me happy!" Boy, did her eyes light up. "Thank you, baby!" she said. "See you next time!"

Next I stopped to visit Mr. Hamm. He has cataracts in both eyes and is blind as a result, but occasionally you'll see him wobble down to the corner store with his cane to buy some things. He was out last month when we stopped by so I was happy to see him in this time. I placed Mr. Hamm's bag of groceries on the table and took out half a dozen eggs. "Isn't that something?!" he said. "Just this mornin' I was just thinking about some eggs!" As I shut the door behind me a few minutes later I still heard him saying, "Isn't it something...isn't it something." Who knew eggs could be such a gift.

Another stop was to see Ms. Josephine. She has a fat orange cat named Tiger who loves to come up and rub on me when I visit. Ms. Josephine's husband passed away in January and she's been having a real hard time since he's been gone. A week ago she was robbed of her social security check while walking to Kroger to get her Thanksgiving food, so we came by to give her a gift card. This week we came in and she had her whole apartment decorated for Christmas and had carols playing out of her little boom box. I sat for a while and listened to her tell me about last Christmas, when she was able to get her husband out of bed and onto the recliner in front of the T.V. He ate a whole Christmas dinner and drank a glass of Pepsi. That was her favorite Christmas because it was the last time her husband ever sat in that reclining chair. "But God knows best," she said, and I replied with, "and helps us with the rest." She likes to say that.

For my own Thanksgiving I was not able to go home, but relied on the kindness of friends here in Cincinnati for a mini Friendsgiving. If I didn't have them I don't know what I would have done, and that's just a teeny tiny fraction of what Dorothy and Ms. Josephine are probably feeling this holiday. But it's been a blessed year indeed, as I went from losing my job and my apartment and having no idea where God wanted me, to moving all the way across the country and finding exactly where I was needed. You don't often think that joy will be on the other side of your comfort zone, but I've learned that it's a lot easier to find joy there than within the confines of your own selfishness. For Dorothy, Mr. Hamm, Ms. Josephine, Mr. Burke, Ms. Roxanne, Gwen, Rosemary, and the other seniors I visit and interact with on a daily basis, it might not be such an amazing season. But through Mercy Volunteer Corps I'm able to be here and bring some joy and relief into their life, if only for a short amount of time. This Giving Tuesday (or any day!), if you feel so inclined, consider making a small donation to Mercy Volunteer Corps, which sends volunteers just like me to various places in U.S and South America to be Jesus to people just like the ones I minister to in Cincinnati. I only need $55 more to reach my goal of $500, but wouldn't it be amazing if I went over?! As always, thank you all for your prayers, support, texts, and love. Happy belated Thanksgiving!