We can provide dignity to people during their final days.

Many of you know that I have run the Micah respite house since 2010. I have seen so many lives receive health and healing through this ministry, but there is one particular story that changed my life forever. Please read it and consider helping Micah to be there for others like her during their time in need.

Not a speck of trash rolled across the grounds at Ni River reservoir on a sunny July day.

It was the best hours of fishing I had experienced in while. But as the boat pulled into shore in the late afternoon, a single piece of paper drifted into his path. Of all things: the timing of the coupon for Ensure nutritional shakes was more than ironic.

Only days earlier, Micah's first hospice patient had passed away at the Residential Recovery Program. Because of her advanced esophageal cancer, she had lived off of Ensure, broth and coffee in her two months in our care.

Heaven sent or not, I took the unusual coupon appearance as a spiritual blessing—a message to continue the diligent work with others, just as we started with our late friend.

What's intriguing about this story is that no one's assessment of her final days came close to the end times we experienced.

Caseworkers said not to expect much interaction and pleasantries; she was paranoid and delusional with a history that hadn't leant itself to relational patterns.

For 25 years, her own parents and siblings found themselves with one choice—distancing themselves from her for their own safety. She had abused her family. She had threatened them with knives. Doctors had called her paranoid schizophrenic. And 20 plus years ago, the right mix of public services never found her.

Each week, for over two decades, the family did all they thought they could for her. Checking in, sending social services once every so often to see if there was any help for her. Grass, mowed when it became necessary. Groceries, they delivered to the end of the driveway each week.

But one day she stopped picking up the food and they knew something was terribly wrong.

In the hospital she cussed her family out of the room. The nurses and doctors, she excused as quickly as they would leave. The idea that she would interact with anyone after so much time in isolation was foreign.

But here she was at the end of her life with no one to take her in and no capability or permission to return to the home her family had provided for her for so many years.

The hospital said her frail body would likely only survive a mere week or two. She hadn't eaten a serious meal since September, and it was now mid-May.

But only days after she arrived at our house, the Micah staff had her changing out of the hospital gown she had worn for weeks on end. They had her interacting with other residents. And there was that one day she sat at the table with others and choked down an entire plate of beef stroganoff.

She lived for the next cigarette break on the back porch with our staff and guests. They were special times, where she recalled childhood memories and carried on about her plans to gain weight, get well and get a home of her own again.

In her time with us, she took medication for her mental condition for the first time in her life. What started as frightened little woman, grew into someone who no longer hid in her room when her brothers visited. She came out, seeking a presence and conversation with them that hadn't existed since the 1980s.

Death growing closer, there was great concern among her family about her eternal resting place. Her tattered history and illness made them unsure about her rights to heaven's gate.

We had been told upon entry that we were not to even mention we were a ministry; she was an atheist.

But as her final days neared, a chaplain from Hospice came as part of a routine rotation. No one expected much, as he offered his distanced pastoral compassion.

Then, as he got up to leave, she stopped him and asked him to pray with her.

Jesus entered her life that day, if he hadn't long before. And we were reminded how much sharing Jesus with others has so little to do with speaking His name, and so much to do with wearing the cross on our shirt sleeve in the ways we care for others.

This is just one of many reasons I hope you will consider taking Micah's Love Your Neighbor challenge with me this fall.

The Love Your Neighbor challenge is Micah's annual effort to gather resources for cultivating community and caring for neighbors. To take the challenge, all you have to do is commit $2 a day for as many days as you can and start giving. You can give weekly ($14), monthly ($60), quarterly ($180), every six months ($365) or even make a one time gift of $730.

My goal is to raise enough money to support one bed at the Residential Recovery Program for a year. Did you know that $365, or six months of giving $2, covers one night in our respite house for eight people who are sick or dying?

I hope you will consider taking the love your neighbor challenge with me and start your own fundraiser for the cause.

Thanks,

Chuck