 Amazing Grace
Nursing Home Ministry
Psalm 138:2,3 I will praise Your
name for You have magnified Your Word and made me bold with strength in my soul.
Rev.
Dianne Doonan
Bible
study every Tuesday at the Fairview Nursing Home in LaGrange, IL 1:30 pm
Church
Service 2nd and 4th Sunday at Westchester Health and Rehabilitation Center in
Westchester, IL 1:45 pm
It began in March of 2001. I was a means of transportation
for a church friend to be able to visit her aging mother at a nursing home. My
love for my friend compelled me to Good works.
It was mealtime and as we sat in the common area I looked
into a vast sea of faces that appeared to be so needy. An angelic woman's eyes
locked with mine and she motioned me over. She whispered, barely audible,
"please pray for me", a tear began to stream down her cheek. I said,
"Do you know the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior?" She replied,
"Yes and I want to go be with Him". I held her hands tightly and
prayed with her. I read some Psalms to her and then sang a song to everyone in
the room. During our ride home, my friend told me that for the last 8 years she
had been visiting her mother there, the woman I prayed with had never spoken a
word. Even before we left that day, I had the privilege and honor of leading the
roommate of my friend's mom to Jesus.
I went to Pastor John and told him of these miracles and he
said he had been waiting for someone to step up into nursing home ministry.
That
was the birth of the thriving Spirit led time we have each and every Tuesday
at 1:30 -2:30. We bring the
keyboard in and sing and praise and get hearts ready to receive the Word. During
the final 10 minutes we give an invitation to receive Christ as Savior.
We have witnessed many patients as well as workers receive
new life in Christ and rejoice as we are a part of their eternal destination
being secured with Jesus! Some times we return the following week to find out
that the very person to pray and receive Christ the week before had left this
earth.
These places can be very sad, oppressive and dark; filled
with sickness, pain and death, but we bring the life and light of Jesus in with
us and we watch transformations of the new birth right before our eyes.
Come
join us on Wednesday and share the good news of love and life in Jesus! |
