Title: Good Tidings Subtitle: News from the RP Home community Author: Laura Duncan Date: December 1, 2013

Leaving Self-pity Behind

The RP Home (RPH) is blessed with many who serve our residents with love, affection, honor and dignity. At any point in the day, whether in the nursing hallways, resident rooms, parlors or the chapel, one sees volunteers, friends and staff gathered.

Will Alexander is a seven-year veteran volunteer at the Home. Powered by a deep admiration for our elders, his mission is to help residents to be all that they can be. He does this by paying attention to “the smallest details of a resident’s life,” which means time spent listening, conversing, sitting together in silence or in prayer, playing and even dancing! In fact, Will has not missed an RPH square dance in six years!

An absolutely delightful person, Will is quite popular with our residents. He came to us at a critical juncture in his life. He had new and challenging health problems that initially caused great stress; yet he asked God for help in managing his problems, in leaving self-pity behind, and for the strength to move forward with purpose.

Will was not new to volunteerism. He had worked for stations WQED and WDUQ in Pittsburgh reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper over the radio to the blind and disabled. He served as a radio announcer at a gospel station in Virginia. When Will returned home to New Castle, Pa., he enrolled at Youngstown State College where he volunteered his time in radio programming at the college radio station, eventually inspiring a program shift from urban contemporary to religious music.

Will knew of the RP Home and had recommended others to volunteer here. But, in those moments of despair, God revealed what would be next for him—joining the RPH community. What resonated most with Will when he joined us was the magnificent care that the staff provides each resident. He knew that he could learn a lot here at the Home from both the residents and the staff. He discovered that he wanted to help us with anything, anytime, anywhere! He has accompanied residents on trips, led song fests, organized afternoon movie sessions, tabled at community events, cleaned up, set up, helped transport residents—you name it and Will has done it.

The Lord has called upon him to minister to our residents and staff alike, Will believes. “I want to do, speak and walk in the ways God would have me act,” he reflects. “I want the residents to be uplifted and to let them know they are loved.” There is no doubt that Will does just that. His care, affection and great humor are gifts to our entire community.

Residents in Service

One of the many remarkable characteristics of the RP Home culture is the depth of warmth and affection more often associated with the nuclear family. Though words like facility and institution are almost always used to describe organizations such as ours, those words run cold when it comes to portraying the essence of our community.

A highlight of life at the RP Home is resident-to-resident relationships. Many of our current residents, particularly those in the Vista and Upper Rooms apartments and McKee Place, volunteer regularly in our formal volunteer program with activities ranging from crafts, reading, bingo and other games, and Saturday teas. However, these resident volunteers also make one-on-one visits on their own, tending to the sick, engaging a resident in conversation, playing a game of Scrabble or just sitting together “for a spell.” These visits, though informal and perhaps unplanned, are what make faith-based communities distinct and are an integral part of the fabric of the RP Home.

Residents Jean Hemphill, Shirley McMillan, Mel Martin, Frances McCracken, Alice Joseph, Richard Weir and Jesse Mae McFarland visit regularly on the nursing and personal care wings. They stop by to see old friends and to welcome new residents. They reach out to others in our RPH family because they understand how important it is for people to feel acknowledged—to know that they are important and to be reminded that God loves them. Jean notes, “Knowing that you care helps people and is important to them. There is a real ministry in just being yourself. You don’t need to be a professional to be a friend!” Therein lies what matters most—the Reformed Presbyterian Home is a community unified around the glory of God and His commandments.

“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” —Matthew  22:35-40

Hello from the CEO

We will be sharing news from our Pittsburgh campus once a year in the Witness. We do publish two other issues of Good Tidings per year, so, if you are not on our mailing list to receive these and wish to be, please contact lmeneely@rphome.org and we will be sure to add you to our list. As always, you may request to receive Good Tidings electronically—just send us your email address. In addition, we will be posting Good Tidings on our website at www.rphome.org, so there are multiple ways to keep apprised of the good work being done on behalf of our beloved residents.