new church life: november/december 2014
dance center named Tanci. At PLAST I help the girls with arts and crafts and
understanding how things work. Like American Scouts, they have badges.
They work as a group to achieve their goals. They do physical activities such as
running races and doing arts and crafts. The girls I work with are attempting
to get their badge in photography. After PLAST I go to Tanci. That is a bit more
difficult because it involves working with little kids which takes patience. It is
a bunch of fun though.
Rachel Buss
I have been practicing altruism by being a helper
and a companion at Cairnwood Village Retirement
Home. I get to sit with different elderly people and
share stories about our lives. Everyone I talk to has
been interested in my life and my thoughts, even
though they have much more experience to offer.
Talking to someone who has lived 60 years more
than I have has given me a perspective I would not have known otherwise. I
can’t say that I now understand what it is like to be their age, but I feel more
empathy toward the elderly because of what I have learned from my friends at
Cairnwood Village.
Hyun-Jin Yang
What I have done for my service work is to help a
couple, one of whom has dementia. The original plan
was to spend time with the person with dementia
so that the spouse can have some time to be away
– to go shopping, do some errands, or take some
personal time. My actual service work changed
from the original plan and I ended up spending time
with both partners, usually having conversations
over a lot of interesting topics. She especially loved telling her old stories and
having a companion. Sometimes, I helped her wash dishes or work outside.
Even though I invested my time in this service work,
it seemed that I was the one who benefited the most
from doing the service work, and by having a warm
and close relationship with the people.
Thu-Ha Le
For my volunteer work, I decided to help out a family
by spending time with an individual who suffers from
a particular type of dementia. I would visit him every
Sunday but he never remembers me. We complete
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