League of Mercy Sunday was this past Sunday at the Montclair Corps.
We send out 8 groups of people with the War Cry magazines, a small gift and a quartet to play Easter music. The 8 groups cover approximately 16 nursing homes in the area.
As we were entering a wing of a large facility, the quartet was starting to set up and an elderly man named "Bill" came up to me. He immediately began telling me how he used to teach a Bible study in this very nursing home before his health began to deteriorate. He went on to say that a Christian television station is how he is feed spiritually now, keeping it on in his room almost all the time. Bill had such light in his eyes, joy on his face yet his body was frail and weak. He told me he was born again in 1953! He seemed to muster up some excitement in the opportunity to share that fact. As we were speaking one of the other residents yelled for the band to stop playing…"Make them stop playing!!" she screamed. Bill turned and smiled at the women then looked straight back at me and said “She better get used to that kind of music for it is all we will hear in Glory!” I agreed, matching his enthusiasm and said “We will have plenty of time to worship there.” In that very moment he got a twinkle in his eye like Santa Clause, leaned in closer to me and said with a grin of a mischievous boy “Yes we will, and I am closer to getting there than you are!”
I could almost hear the taunting of ….nah, nah …na, na na! in his tone.
I can not tell you what effect his words and even more so …his attitude had on me in that moment.
“I am going to get there before you!” he said with a grin.
All I could say was…"You’re making me jealous Bill!" and to tell you the truth, he was.
We send out 8 groups of people with the War Cry magazines, a small gift and a quartet to play Easter music. The 8 groups cover approximately 16 nursing homes in the area.
As we were entering a wing of a large facility, the quartet was starting to set up and an elderly man named "Bill" came up to me. He immediately began telling me how he used to teach a Bible study in this very nursing home before his health began to deteriorate. He went on to say that a Christian television station is how he is feed spiritually now, keeping it on in his room almost all the time. Bill had such light in his eyes, joy on his face yet his body was frail and weak. He told me he was born again in 1953! He seemed to muster up some excitement in the opportunity to share that fact. As we were speaking one of the other residents yelled for the band to stop playing…"Make them stop playing!!" she screamed. Bill turned and smiled at the women then looked straight back at me and said “She better get used to that kind of music for it is all we will hear in Glory!” I agreed, matching his enthusiasm and said “We will have plenty of time to worship there.” In that very moment he got a twinkle in his eye like Santa Clause, leaned in closer to me and said with a grin of a mischievous boy “Yes we will, and I am closer to getting there than you are!”
I could almost hear the taunting of ….nah, nah …na, na na! in his tone.
I can not tell you what effect his words and even more so …his attitude had on me in that moment.
“I am going to get there before you!” he said with a grin.
All I could say was…"You’re making me jealous Bill!" and to tell you the truth, he was.
2 comments:
:o)
thanks for the story. great stuff!
Dave
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