t.o.t.: atria san juan

It's been almost a year since I volunteered at an assisted living community nearby where I live. It's a ministry organized by Saddleback Church with a simple idea: For those seniors who like to attend Sunday service but cannot or do not want to go outside the facility, we set up a simple worship center at site for them.

There are three of us volunteers: Bettyanne & Darrin, a wife and husband team, and I. Every Sunday morning we go in there, get the DVD/TV remote controls from the front desk, set up the CD/video players, pass out the hymn booklets and help them (those who come on wheelchairs or walkers) sit as they come in. Then we start with a few hymn songs sing-along, a 20 minutes or so short sermon or bible study video, then another few hymn songs, then it's done.

And once a month we conduct a communion ceremony, with Bettyanne bringing the bread and I the grape juice. Also occasionally Bettyanne will bring some homemade cakes or cookies to celebrate special holidays or some of the attendees' birthdays.

The part I enjoy most, besides singing those good old melodial hymn songs that you don't usually get to do at contemporary services, is chatting with these gentle old people after the service, when they are in the mood--which they usually are. Sometimes just a few words, sometimes for a few minutes, week after week. I gradually get to know some of them better, all with interesting characters and backgrounds:

Bud is a retired teacher and a WW II veteran from New Jersey (he's 94 now), who is almost always the first to come for the service, in a suit jacket, and always picks his favorite hymn "How Great Thou Art" to sing.

Bonnie is from Washington state, she moved here at the urge of her daughter who's living at Coto De Caza, an affluent gated community nearby, after her husband passed away and herself had a stroke. She's about my mother's age--if she hadn't had passed away so many years ago--and her gentle demeanor and reserved, humble way of speaking sometimes remind me of my mom.

Connie is in her 80's, but still has a sharp mind and vivid memories, and always takes notes while watching the sermon video, and would volunteer to share with us what touched her during the service.

Bruce was an engineer when he got a stroke at his 50's that left him completely paralyzed on the right side and unable to speak or walk. He had since picked up his passion on painting and become the on-premises artist for the center for the past 20+ years. They hold annual art exhibit events for him and he had invited us to visit his living quarters which really looks like an art studio.

Fred is another 90+ gentleman that doesn't talk much but always wears a smile on his face. He has an adult son and daughter-in-law who would occasionally come to visit and sit with him through the service, but a more common companion of his was another old lady in the center who would sit adoringly next to him every week, until her memory and mobility deteriorated to the point she had to be moved to the special care quarters and did not show up at the service any more.

June is another sharp old lady, who is never shy about making prayer requests for herself (unresolved relationship with her sister), her relatives (a pastor nephew-in-law whose son just committed suicide), and people around her (those who were not well at the center) every time Bettyanne asks the audience for them.

Margie is a healthy looking old lady from Chicago with a shiny braid of golden hair, and a good voice--that's why I sometimes teased her to sing harmony with me during the hymn singing but she would shyly decline.

Nancy & Glenn (wife & husband) are the only non-Caucasian people I see in the audience (and probably for the whole center), and they share the same last name Wong as I, though they are the 3rd generation Chinese immigrants from Canton and their Wong means "yellow" in Cantonese while mine means "old man" in Mandarin Chinese. Glenn has an opera grade voice that I like to encourage him to give us a solo performance someday.

As the service proceeds, I like to stay in the background, handing out the hymn booklets, playing the music (I downloaded songs on the two CD's Saddleback Church gave us to an old smart phone of mine and installed a music player app to make it a random access MP3 music player, to avoid swapping CD's in and out and sequencing through sound tracks one by one just to find the song they pick to sing), and let Bettyanne and Darrin do the talking--sermon summary, prayer request, etc.

And that had been working fine, until one day, when I got back from out of town and went there for the first time after a few weeks' absence, and found out that I was the only volunteer there.

So I tried to "wing" it: I picked the video session by hunch, played and sang more songs than usual, and instead of sermon summary and prayer request, I shared stories of my recent trip to Europe and thoughts on my recent birthday, etc., and I made it through. Some even liked it, it seemed.

So last Sunday, after we finished our usual first-Sunday-of-the-month communion ceremony, and while everyone was having the homemade cakes Bettyanne brought, I showed them some pictures on the big screen TV (through the hook-up with my tablet) of my recent trips to Taiwan and Japan, as well as some old photos of me, my high school reunion, where I live now, etc., and explained. They were in awe, probably by those places they'd never seen before, and/or maybe because they finally got to know more about this mysterious Asian man that they'd been seeing for almost a year without really knowing who he is.

And sure enough, Connie, the ever so diligent scholar of the class, asked me for the name of the city I showed that sits next to a volcano in south Japan, (I told her I'll get back to her next week), and Bruce, though speechless, stared at the photo of my home backyard that I showed last, thinking he could draw a painting out of it, maybe?

I'll find out in the weeks to come.