Next, I finished up #29 in our series of “Anti-Boredom” Packets and Claire sent them out to the senior care facilities. We also put finishing touches on a Power Point presentation for this Sunday’s service at our church. It involves photos of Vital Signs Ministries activities over 37 years backed by a terrific 3 1/2 minute song by Scott Wesley Brown, “Who Will Stand in the Gap?” While I was doing this, Claire was doing VSM finances, posting the September LifeSharer letter on the web, sending it out to our email list, and posting on the website the last couple of our activity packets.
And finally, the pièce de résistance; namely, our first “When Swing Was King” show since February!
That’s right. We were invited in to Immanuel Village Assisted Living to present amplified songs in their outside courtyard but in a place where residents could hear it by sitting inside a common area (safely distanced) or actually sitting on the patio near where Claire and I were working the computer, microphone, and speaker. We didn’t know if it would work – the distance, the divided audience, the lack of the photos which normally accompany the show, the time since we’ve been there, and so on. We were expecting 3 or 4 people to be sitting way out yonder with no substantial communication between us.
We were intensely happy to be completely wrong! For we ended up with a combined audience of 25 or more and, for about 90 minutes, they were deeply involved in enjoying the music and stories, welcoming us back with wonderful enthusiasm, and letting us know how much they have appreciated the activity pages (along with the personal stories and photos that accompany each packet) over these long months. We were even able to have several conversations with them. The activity directors suggested they weren’t all that surprised by the turnout because, “Hey, they are really grateful for you guys thinking of them and putting in all that work on those activity pages. We kinda’ figured you’d get a bunch.” Wow. What a sweet blessing for us. And what a combination of blessings for the day. Thank You, Lord Jesus.
