Andy and Phyllis taught me a lot about hospitality in the easy way they hosted me. They have a room always at the ready. The house itself is comfortable and uncluttered. You never feel in the way in the shared living spaces, and at the same time privacy was readily available. Their teenage son, David, babysat for my son and was nonchalant when the baby threw up all over him. David, too, was offering hospitality.
Their openness was in striking contrast to the lack of hospitality provided me by my church community during that same time. I felt that the church had forgotten me. Certainly, a few individual friends checked in with me—my small group came to pack the moving truck. My friends Mike and Beth and their boys were available for absolutely anything from babysitting to getting the house ready to sell. But I didn’t hear from the pastor, and I didn’t feel that the church was with me as a body.
I felt abandoned by my church.
01. Living the Church
God redeemed this experience in 2008 through Shelly Allen. At forty-two-years-old, after a lengthy period of testing, Shelly was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Shelly was one of the founding members of Church of the Savior, which was only four years old at that time. The poem at the end titled, “The Body of Christ,” chronicles much of the work that she did in our church. She was often one of the first people a visitor to the church would meet, and she hosted many parties and dinners in her home. Shelly especially loved to provide hospitality on the holidays to the other single members of the church who didn’t have family nearby—with Easter egg hunts and more.
The ALS progressed rapidly. Soon Shelly was in a wheelchair. She continued to go to work in the IT department at Wheaton College. After she lost strength in her legs, friends began driving her to work each day.
Shelly felt strongly about staying in her own home—and not going into a nursing home. So she opened her home to a group of women from church so that we could care for her. There were about twenty people who served on rotation. Some helped with the morning routine that included showering Shelly and getting her dressed. Others helped out after work. And still others helped as part of an evening and bedtime team. There was quite an elaborate scheduling and reminder system that kept us all coordinated.
I was on the evening team with Catherine. One evening a week I drove over to Shelly’s home at about 8:00 pm. The door would be left open. And Tim, Shelly’s very unhappy cat, would greet us with complaints about his owner’s situation.
We would help Shelly slide in and out of her wheelchair using a board so that she could go to the bathroom. Then we would help her slide into bed and get dressed. She’d clearly explain each time what we needed to do to maneuver her through the process. I found this reassuring, as I had no background in offering this kind of care.
We’d make sure everything was in position: the grabber stick next to her, the prayer blanket a group of women made, the iPod at the ready, cell phone, alarm clock, and medications on the side table. We would then adjust the lights and leave the door unlocked for the morning crew.
It was troubling to leave her this way, as she couldn’t get out of bed on her own. But it was what she wanted. The final choice she was able to make for herself was how to live out these days. And she wanted to live them in the care of her church community rather than in the care of strangers.