Please accept sincere apologies for the error in the December 1st Spire regarding Christmas Cards for recovering vets at Walter Reed Hospital. That program has been discontinued. The Mission and Stewardship Committee will be delivering cards to the Detroit Veterans Hospital. Please come to fellowship hall after both services the next two Sundays to sign cards!

  

Tips For Seniors
Beyond Home for the Holidays:
  Christmastime is an especially lonely time an elderly person confined to a nursing home.  A visit, during this season, can do wonders to redirect the inward focus of shut-ins, many of whom struggle with depression. Determine what your schedule will allow and consider dedicating a few hours visiting this often overlooked population of our society. Your precious time, given from a heart full of compassion and care, may be all it takes to lift the spirits of a nursing home resident. Here are suggestions of things you might consider doing with them:
* Present a Christmas program, singing Christmas carols and encouraging them to join-in.
* Wheel them down to the Christmas program to help free-up the nursing home staff.
* With the consent of staff, distribute small trinkets and/or sweet treats.
* Listen to their stories, while making eye contact to demonstrate you are genuinely interested and you care.
* Decorate their rooms with Christmas stockings or wreaths to brighten their days.
* Distribute personalized Christmas cards with their names written upon the envelopes.
* Share a meal with them: your time alone will be regarded as a special gift.
* Read aloud or play simple games with them to distract them from their mundane existence.
* Nothing demonstrates more that you care than a sincere hug.                                             - Dr. Runamuck

 

   Adult Nurture encourages you to sign up now for the 2016 Women's Retreat, January 22-23 at Weber's Inn in Ann Arbor. Our speaker this year will be the Rev. Fran Hayes from Dearborn's Littlefield Presbyterian Church; she will talk about "What is the World Like When God's Will is Done?" 
   Weber's Inn is a meeting location we go back to again and again; the rooms are lovely, the food is very good and management works hard to meet our every need. Rooms are available as singles ($150), doubles ($105) or triples ($90); attendees can either select their own roommates in advance or be assigned one. As always, confidential scholarships are available if needed; talk to Jan Holmes. And we will once again have a hospitality suite where we can gather following Friday evening's program to simply kick back and enjoy each other's company.
   One of our Women's Retreat traditions is Prayer Partners: we pick the name of a woman we will, confidentially, keep in special prayer throughout the year. It's time now to send a note to your prayer partner from last year's retreat, identifying yourself as her prayer partner and letting her know she's been watched over. It is a very fulfilling role for both the giver and the recipient.
   Sign-up sheets are at the Crossroads on Sundays. An Adult Nurture reprecentative is there to answer your questions and take your checks. We hope very much that you will be part of what promises to be a time of spiritual growth and congregational fellowship.