Let family members know that if you should develop a terminal illness, you would consider hospice care. Look for “discussion moments,” such as newspaper articles, television shows, or the illness or death of someone, to introduce the subject.

The Church of the Brethren End-of-Life Decision-Making Statement concludes with these affirming words: “As people of faith, members of the Church of the Brethren, let us support one another in the difficult task of end-of-life decision making. Let us encourage one another with the assurance that even in this age of technology, it is Jesus who is the Resurrection and the Life, Lord of both the living and the dead.”

Sue Moore is director of Good Samaritan Hospice, a member of First Church of the Brethren, Roanoke, Va., and chair of the ABC Board.

Taking Another Look Around Your Church
By Fred Swartz
Spring 2004 Caregiving: Taking Another Look at Disabilities

I sometimes wonder whether Brethren congregations have been diligent in their ministry to persons in their churches and communities who live with disabilities. The category of disabilities includes physical impairments and limits brought on by the environment, life events, and age, all of which impose restrictions upon a person’s opportunities and abilities. Deacons are called to be sensitive to the needs of all people related to the church and to help each one experience wholeness of life.

Deacons are invited to follow these suggestions as they “take another look” to evaluate how their church is responding to the needs of people with disabilities.

Evaluate the church facilities as to how well they accommodate all persons. Is there at-level or ramp access to the main activity center? Are bathrooms accessible to wheelchairs with grab bars installed? Can children reach water fountains, sinks and other bathroom facilities? Are there places in the sanctuary where persons in wheelchairs or mobile chairs can park without being in the aisle? Are floor surfaces conducive to people using walkers, canes, or other assistance devices? Ask someone with a disability and a perceptive child to take an evaluative tour of the facilities with you. The local office for the aging, or someone from an agency related to monitoring access for the disabled can also help.

Install or upgrade hearing and sight aids. With longevity increasing and technology taking its toll on the senses, the number of persons in our churches who have some difficulty hearing or seeing is increasing. The church should provide hearing assistance devices and large print materials for those who want them. Deacons can assure people that there is no stigma to using such aids. Church newsletters should also be produced in large type.

Arrange transportation for the elderly, especially at night. Churches are losing many capable older leaders because they cannot drive to church for evening meetings.

Sponsor workshops on relating to disabling circumstances. Deacons have many opportunities to help children and adults understand a disabled person’s “world”; train caregivers on how to cope with the demands upon their time, energy, and wisdom; educate the congregation with medical and research information about debilitating illnesses; and provide information on what is helpful and not helpful to those with disabilities.

Provide resource material. Explore whether the church library has books and other resource materials that would help others understand the issues related to disabilities. Sources for titles could include the Internet, the local Office on Aging, and the public library.

Consider people with responsibilities that limit their freedom. How can the church minister to persons who need to work on Sundays, are restricted by their caregiving commitment to attend church, or are dependent upon others for transportation? How can deacons be creative to include these persons in the life of the congregation?

Include people with disabilities in church life. It is not enough to make sure the church is accessible. Those who find it difficult to be as mobile as the majority, or whose handicap limits their ability to be socially active — are these persons welcomed in the fellowship of the church? Are they made to feel valuable? Are there ways by which they can contribute their talents and time to the church? Does the church program include persons trained and willing to care for persons with behavioral or mental restrictions?

Deacons are urged to “take another look” at how well their congregation is attending to the needs and joy of those who don’t fit the stereotypical adult, for whom most of our facilities and programs are designed. One motivating thought is that the majority of us at some time in our lives will no longer fit that “perfect” stereotype either.

Church Families Support Their Older Adults
By Heddie Sumner
Spring 2004 Caregiving: Taking Another Look at Disabilities

Providing help to the older members of the congregation is nothing new for Brethren. Brethren have a history of pitching in wherever and for whatever is needed. However, Brethren are also known for not asking for help. The need to help others often gets in the way when the persons who need help and support are ourselves. Fear of losing independence makes older members not ask for help. The church must be in regular contact with and watch for opportunities to assist older members so that elders are comfortable receiving assistance.

Personal experience has shown me what it means to be part of a family of faith. The support my mother recently received during cancer surgery and treatment from the Boones Mill Church of Boones, Va., brought home just how supportive Brethren can be. Her congregation recognized the need and provided assistance to meet her physical, spiritual, social and emotional needs. They did this by:

For those elders who are active, we need to continue to use their gifts and talents for the work of Christ. Maintaining connections with the church family and their faith is especially important for our older members who are not able to attend regularly. They may be in crisis, experiencing other losses in their lives. It is our responsibility to reach out, support and help older members see that they are valuable to us and are created in the image of God who never forgets them.

Heddie Sumner, R.N., is director of Dementia Services for Midland (Mich.) County Council on Aging. She serves on the CPDN Committee.


How Can Churches Address the Dearth of Spiritual Care for Elders?
By Myrna Long Wheeler
Fall 2004 Caregiving: Building a Crisis Care Team

As a chaplain in a faith-based retirement community, I know that the elder population faces many crises in their later years, such as failing health, diminished mental acuity, loss of loved ones, separation from a loved one because of dementia or when one spouse needs skilled nursing, moving from the family home, financial crunches when expenses are more than income, prescribed yet unaffordable medications, loneliness — and the list goes on.

This is not a small problem affecting only a tiny segment of society. People over the age of 85 are the fastest growing demographic group in the United States. In the year 2010 “baby boomers” will begin turning 65. Faced with a growing elder population, communities of faith and faith-based retirement communities will need to address how to help elders with the many crises that inevitably will affect them.

One crisis not mentioned above is spiritual. It may not always be a presenting problem, but spiritual needs are not being met among elders. In 1997 Gallup polled adults across America posing questions about life’s end, such as “What do you worry most about?” In an interview, George Gallup, Jr., said he saw evidence that people’s spiritual needs were not being met, a lack he hoped clergy would note. At least half the respondents identified four things as very important: having someone with whom they could share their fears and concerns, simply having someone with them, having the opportunity to pray alone, and having someone pray for them. When asked to identify an overall area, 38 percent indicated spiritual matters would most worry them. Clearly spiritual needs can be a crisis.

Retirement communities frequently call together a “care team” for a resident. The team is made up of the Director of Nursing, licensed Social Service designee, physical therapist, chaplain or clergy from the home congregation and family members. Together they look at options for whatever crisis the resident may be experiencing. In some cases this includes spiritual crisis and needs.

What can churches do to address the crises affecting elderly parishioners? A first step is to brainstorm ways to address these concerns. Ascertaining the needs of the elders in your congregation is essential. Richard H. Gentzler’s book, Designing an Older Adult Ministry, gives a sample questionnaire for congregations.

Ordained clergy serving busy congregations can’t be expected to consistently provide the listening time needed for elders to talk about their lives. There are many resources within their faith communities to build trained care teams to explore some possibilities. This team could offer: spiritual directors to help elders review one’s life, discerning its meaning and purpose; reflective listeners to facilitate a deepening exploration of the nature of life and God in one’s life; resource providers to gather writings by some of the great authors who have dealt with the realities of their own aging, and to provide materials to explore dying well; meditation leaders to provide elders with skills to awaken the sleeping spirit within, through various forms of meditation; Bible teachers to help elders read scripture as nurturing and sustaining guides; and preachers to declare the word of God so that it incites elders to their potential. Congregations may also have people skilled in social service or able to access county, state or federal funding. Certainly there are people called to be elder advocates, who can target injustices on behalf of elders with letter-writing campaigns to change laws or policies.

Once congregations start to brainstorm, the flow of ideas will spill into many areas. For example, some congregations may ask Bethany Theological Seminary and the Brethren Academy how much training potential pastors receive for ministry to elders. When church members get going on ministering to the needs of elders, congregations should watch out — the sky’s the limit!

Myrna Long Wheeler is chaplain at Brethren Hillcrest Homes of La Verne, Calif., and a member of ABC’s Older Adult Ministry Cabinet.


Moving to a New Home Means Downsizing
By Fred Swartz
Fall 2003 Caregiving: A Journey to Where Love and Acceptance Live

Forty-three million Americans change residences every year. We are a nation literally on the move. Add to that the millions in our nation who are living on the streets, and you have a staggering number of people who are unsettled.

A surprising number of biblical heroes were homeless too. Abraham was called to take his family and possessions and start walking! Before Abraham there was Noah. What a moving task he had! Then the faithful daughter-in-law, Ruth, who vowed to leave her own relatives for a very strange place. Jesus poignantly reflects that “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Was Jesus literally homeless, or did he mean that there was nowhere on earth to which he was attached as a “home place”? The Apostle Paul perhaps caught the significance of Jesus’ reference when he advised his readers in Corinth, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God … eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). In other letters Paul admonished Christ’s followers not to become attached to the things of this earth.

My wife, Nancy, and I recently moved from our residence of 20 years, the longest we had ever kept an address in our lives. We had enjoyed a spacious parsonage with eight rooms, a full basement, a big attic, and an oversized two-car garage. We had never thrown out anything in 45 years of marriage and vocations! We had chosen to relocate to a retirement village, where the only space available at the time of our need was a four-room duplex with a small attic, no basement and no garage. It was decision time!

The most important decision was choosing where to live and why. Our choice was aided by the fact that we did not own our home, nor had we invested our energies in making the parsonage distinctly personal. We did not have equity either to part with or to transfer to another home, which was both a bane and a blessing. A bane in that we had to produce outright cash for another residence; a blessing in that we were not financially nor deeply emotionally attached to the place.

We looked at long-range objectives when we made the decision to move to a retirement village. Those objectives included our desire to have the freedom from restrictive responsibilities to spend time with family when we wanted to; our goals for independence and health care; and our passions for recreation, intellectual stimulation and travel. The retirement village, located adjacent to a college campus and midway between the homes of our immediate family, was well-equipped to serve our health needs and met our goals.

The other set of objectives we had to establish before getting ready to move entailed knowing what to keep and with what to part! Nancy decided she had to pare down collections of knickknacks, glassware, furniture, even cookbooks. It was painful for me to part with the books on which I had depended during my pastoral years. But I opted for the present, rather than the past. My decision about the books was based on the fact that our new location is only steps away from a Brethren college library. Some of our cherished possessions are now in the homes of our children.

We “feel at home” where we are and with the downsizing we have made. This is due to not getting too attached to the things and places of this world, and making decisions on the basis of well-thought out and enduring goals. Brethren also have this advantage … as long as they move to a community where Brethren reside, they always have instant and caring friends!

Fred Swartz is a retired pastor residing in Bridgewater, Va.

Abiding in the Shadows
By Joyce E. Petry
Winter 2001 Caregiving: Living with Mental Illness

I was first diagnosed with depression during my junior year in high school. In the 30 plus years that have passed since, depression has been a chronically recurring theme in my life. While most people experience “blue” days at one time or another, it is difficult for a person who has not lived through a major depressive episode to understand what depression really is. Consider the darkest day you have ever known, then imagine holding that feeling for weeks, or months, or even years, without relief. This is depression.

A crazy quilt pattern of affliction has emerged during decades of living with this disease. Welcome stretches of relative peace and contentment are abruptly interrupted by major depressive episodes and/or lengthy periods of dysthymia (persistent despondency).

The worst of these interruptions came in 1996 when I was twice hospitalized in psychiatric care facilities in Cumberland and Baltimore, Md., for a total of four months. I am very grateful for the skilled and compassionate care I received during those hospitalizations. Yet my soul will always bear the mark of what I saw and heard during months of being locked away with other mentally ill, alcoholic, drug-addicted patients. In the midst of an atmosphere of barely-contained violence (for persistent anger is often a symptom of depression), I learned to know many lost but gentle souls so damaged by life’s cruelties that there remained little hope for any kind of normal existence to emerge. Whatever naiveté I may have carried with me into those psychiatric facilities was permanently set aside by the realities of raw human desperation I saw everywhere around me.

For me, the most difficult aspect of dealing with clinical depression has been in being forced to admit that there is something wrong with my mind. Mental illness is not seen as being on an equal plain with physical illness — not by society, nor by those of us who are mentally ill. Granted a choice, I would choose almost any type of chronic physical illness over the life-and-death battles brought on by this recurrent mental torment. Intellectual understanding of the disease does little to alleviate the devastation of walking through life feeling like a crazy person. I know of no other way to describe what it feels like to have my life taken over by horrifying sensations that bombard me from every side.

It is difficult to know how to answer people who want to know why I am depressed. In my experience depression does not need a reason. In fact, one of the most insidious aspects of this disease is that it seems to attack with greatest intensity when things are going especially well in my life. This makes it very difficult to trust happiness, for I know how quickly and how violently it can be taken from me. Years of cognitive therapy have done little to explain why I am one of the millions afflicted with severe depression, other than to say that I seem to be genetically predisposed towards this particular disease.

I am often at a loss when I attempt to respond to friends and family who want to know how they can help me when I am gripped with depression. We Christians are programmed to want to help people who are in trouble, and the wonder of it is that many times we are granted the means to bring healing to the broken places that we find. Unfortunately, this is not so true with attempts to help those who are mentally ill.

During my years of pastoral service, I have found that one of the most difficult ministries in the church is the ministry of abiding with the afflicted. The simple gift of one’s abiding presence is often the only ministry that can be offered to one who is chronically or terminally ill. By God’s grace, it is also often enough.

To know that I will not be abandoned by those who care for me — even when I am most horribly depressed — is to catch a glimpse of flickering light in a sea of darkness. While it is true that no one can really join me in my journeys through depression, it does somehow help to know that there are people who, through their very presence in my life, are accompanying me as best they can. Abiding is an active ministry of the church, not a passive one. So, too, is the gift of prayer for those who suffer.

As a pastor, it is my privilege to preach a message of Christian joy, hope and peace, even (or especially) at times when I am experiencing none of those feelings myself. This has become a part of the essence of faith for me — to hold fast to belief in the good news of Jesus Christ when all internal evidence seems to contradict the message. Like Paul, I can affirm that God’s grace is sufficient — but just barely, sometimes. Grace comes as a second-by-second trickle that sustains me in the wilderness of longing.

Abiding in the shadows is not a way of life that I would choose for myself, but my journeys through darkness have caused me to meet many remarkable people I would not otherwise have known. Many capable mental health professionals have helped me to find my way through the valleys, but it is also true that I have gained a number of helpful insights from other persons who live with mental illness. I can only hope it is true that I, too, have been able to help some people as I have interacted with them from the perspective of a wounded healer.

The author of Ecclesiastes spoke for the mentally ill when he said: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the [one] who falls and has no one to help him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10) To be severely depressed is one of the loneliest experiences imaginable. I thank God for people willing to abide in the shadows with me as I fight this disease.

Joyce Petry is pastor of the Antelope Park Church of the Brethren, Lincoln, Neb.

Learn Ways to Get Your House In Order
By Jim Replogle
Winter 2000, End-of-Life Issues

When my father passed away I immediately felt a great loss of a loved one along with an overwhelming sense of responsibility. What do I do first? Whom do I contact? What funeral arrangements need to be made? The questions kept coming along simultaneously with waves of grief.

As I walked down the hall of my parents home that bleak January morning, I passed my father’s office and suddenly remembered him saying to no one in particular, “If anything happens to me, check my desk.”

When I sat in his chair and began looking through the drawers of his well-ordered desk, I felt a calm begin to settle about me. Carefully filed in neatly labeled folders I found all manner of instructions.

Under Funeral Arrangements there was a note to call the owner of the local funeral home. There I discovered that everything had been taken care of — the order of service with suggested readings, hymns and participants; which casket to use; a draft of the obituary; and other suggestions for the service. What a relief! I probably would have spent far more than necessary for my father’s funeral just to be sure that I did the right thing. But he had cared for most of the details and even pre-paid for most of the expenses.

My father’s “pre-planning” did not stop with the funeral. He also left an inventory of possessions, investments, insurance policies, and a checklist for paying bills. My father significantly eased the pain of his dying by sharing his thoughts and desires before his death.

Through this experience I received one of the most valuable gifts a person can give his or her loved ones — the same careful planning for death that they exhibited during life. What are some of the important decisions that should be made prior to death? Here is a checklist for many of them. Certainly each family may have others items to add.

Estate Plan — This comprehensive plan takes into account heirs, beneficiaries, tax implications, investment opportunities, life insurance, and charitable contributions to provide for the orderly passing of one’s resources to those that he or she feels can best benefit from them. Although estate plans are usually thought to be mostly financial in nature they usually force us to confront other issues or concerns, such as estrangement from loved ones, blended families, unique health issues.

Charitable Giving — Most people are motivated to give, but the planning process furthers that effort. When life income is used in the appropriate planning method, it can actually increase the wealth for the donor and the charitable organization. To maximize contributions, contact a planned giving or development officer for the charity or nonprofit organization that will receive the contribution.

Will, Durable Power of Attorney, Advanced Medical Directive — These are the “Big Three” documents that any individual must have to assist in the administration of the estate.

Inventory of Assets — This comprehensive list of everything you own will be necessary as you draft your will and if your estate is probated.

Funeral Arrangements — Some of the arrangements have been mentioned above. Other arrangements could be added to fit with your particular interests and needs.

This list could be much longer and a more detailed explanation could be helpful. But the important point is that you get started doing something. Do it now. In my work with individuals, I am confronted on a near daily basis with the need for more end-of-life planning as well as the sadness and grief the lack of that planning brings to those that are left behind.

Jim Replogle is the director of Deferred Gifts Services for the Brethren Foundation, a service of the Church of the Brethren Benefit Trust. He is a member of the Bridgewater (Va.) Church.