I’m going to be painfully honest– I was totally ready to throw in the towel with our nonprofit. I wasn’t going to stop serving nursing home residents personally, I was just going to put the organization on the back burner for a while. Our family has undergone a lot of personal stress this year, and the seeming lack of support for Faithful Friends was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I was overwhelmed and discouraged. I felt like no one cared about the elderly and I was tired of trying to make people care. All I see online and on television with regards to grants and charitable contributions is primarily for children or animals (think ASPCA or Shriners Hospital commercials). I love puppies and children, and I don’t want them to suffer. But thousands of forgotten Kentuckians are spending their final days in loneliness, despair, and poverty. Surely they matter too. Yet I’ve become so cynical that I’m pretty sure that if you gave someone the choice between supporting the shivering little puppy in the cold or the frail old woman in the nursing home, people are going to choose the puppy every time.
To be fair, I haven’t done a great job with marketing or fundraising. I don’t enjoy it. I’d rather be hands-on in the nursing home, praying with or visiting a resident, or creating content like scripture pages and resident newsletters. But those things don’t pay the phone bill. They don’t cover our very expensive insurance policy we have to carry. They don’t keep the lights on in our office. We have to rely on other people’s kindness and generosity to do what we do.
But here we are at Christmas, a time when people are predictably more compassionate and generous, and I couldn’t even get 100 nursing home residents covered for Christmas. I’ve been doing gifts for residents since 2018, and not once did I ever not have enough donated items for all participating residents. We were down to the wire. On Friday, a week before the nursing home Christmas party I still had 25 people who needed gifts. If people weren’t going to come through, I needed to figure out a plan quickly. So I prayed and asked God to provide 25 people to sign up by Sunday night.
On Saturday, I received a phone call from a very kind gentleman (who will remain anonymous) saying that he wanted to give us a very large donation. I’m talking 4 digits–that’s huge for us! I was stunned. I had half-heartedly sent out a few donation request letters the week prior, and expected no real responses. A few hours after that call, I received a phone call from a friend who asked specifically how the nonprofit was doing. I expressed my concerns and frustrations and he immediately began to speak words of wisdom and encouragement, offering to sit down with me and Todd to go over some fundraising strategies for the new year. Surely God was moving.
On Sunday morning, I had all 100 nursing home residents’ wish lists covered. God had answered my prayer. All the residents would receive gifts for Christmas.
I can’t make people care. I can present the need but even that is tricky amid concerns about privacy. Unlike the starving, cold puppies that ASPCA shows the world, I can’t put sad pictures of nursing home residents all over the airwaves. There are privacy issues as well as dignity issues; walking the fine line between educating the public while respecting the dignity of the person. I always ask myself, “When I’m 80 years old with dementia and can’t make a decision for myself, would I want the world to see me laying in bed, half covered up, wearing a diaper and staring into space?” Probably not. We are such a visually driven culture as evidenced by the popularity of TikTok and YouTube. People read less and watch more. That adds to the difficulties we face as an organization serving the vulnerable elderly–a demographic that’s already been set aside and forgotten. Even if I could show the world those things, I still can’t force them to feel compassion. I can’t move them to action.
Only God can stir people’s hearts. Only God can cause someone to be more outward focused rather than self-focused. Only God can take our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26).
I don’t know what the future holds for Faithful Friends Kentucky. I’m not sure what direction God is moving us in right now. I do know that He’s trying to tell me to stop relying on myself and my own efforts and to trust Him with every aspect of life, including the future of our organization. I also know that I will keep moving forward, little by little, making a difference in the lives of the nursing home residents I serve each week. I can only control how I choose to spend my time and my resources. I’ll leave the rest up to God.
*I need to say a huge thank you to the people who have been so supportive of our efforts thus far, especially:
Pleasant Valley Community Church–thank you for believing in this from the start. Thank you for being consistently pro-life and proclaiming the Gospel which fuels all our efforts.
Our original team of advisors, mentors, and board members plus current ones: Sue Fowler, Sheila Howard, Cathy Englehardt, Sarah Tong, and Matt Bristow.
My current team of volunteers who have been with me every Sunday for over a year–Dan Styke, Denise Blake, Jody Burke, Beverly and Kirby Chelgren
Thank you to everyone who has donated or volunteered or prayed. You are all so very crucial to this ministry.