On the first Sabbath of every month, a group of students wait on the steps of Wright Hall to take part in Lantern, a ministry that started at Southern a year ago. Once everyone is gathered, they drive seven minutes down the road to a nursing home where they spend the next two hours with the residents there.
Lantern is an outreach program at Southern that focuses its work with the elderly, specifically Alzheimer's patients. Students who participate go to Morning Pointe Alzheimer's Care, a nursing home with the mission to “provide the best possible care for seniors.”
According the Alzheimer’s Association there is an estimate of 5.7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s. From this number, 5.5 million are patients over the age of 65. Morning Pointe Alzheimer's Care is the home to about 25 residents, all of who suffer from Alzheimer’s or some other sort of dementia.
“We need to raise awareness [about] Alzheimer’s,” said Katherine Chambers, a caregiver at Morning Pointe. “It’s a much bigger situation that I think people who do not work or volunteer in these kind of facilities realize. It’s a big issue that I always encourage people to learn about.”
Though Campus Ministries added this outreach to their program only a year ago, the ministry was actually started by James and Juanita Nayler in 2008. Previously they helped in seven different nursing homes at Georgia.
“We felt that it was our calling,” James Nayler said. “We are so glad that the students jumped on board to help us because we love reaching out.”
The ministry’s main purpose is to bring worship to the residents in the nursing home. Students sing, pray and invite a local pastor to preach.
“Even though there is a big age gap, the one thing that we can share in common is Jesus,” said Desther Rey Camacho, a freshman nursing student. “We are all here to worship, and even though we are the ones catering to the elderly, we are all blessed from it.”
Lantern is one of the four outreaches planned by Campus Ministries. The next outing will take place on Dec. 1, 2018. For more information, visit southern.edu/serve.
Image credit: Paola Mora Zapeda