April 23, 2003
Green House Project aims to revolutionize elderly care
By Woody Woodrick

TUPELO, Miss. (UMNS) – Plants bloom and thrive in the warmth and light of a greenhouse, and developers of the Green House Project, a groundbreaking system of care for America’s elderly, hope the first-ever Green House is a place where the aged can also bloom.

United Methodist Senior Services of Mississippi Inc. will open the first Green House in the nation May 2 on the Traceway Retirement Community campus.

"I’m convinced society is reflected in how we treat our elders," says Steve McAlilly, president and chief executive officer of UM Senior Services, citing the commandment to honor father and mother. "The whole country is watching this project. A lot of organizations are waiting to see how this goes. I’m grateful our board had the vision and courage to step out."

The Green House Project moves away from the institutional model of nursing homes and borrows from the highly successful group-home model used with troubled teens.

The concept revolves around a facility built specifically for elders that creates a "home" atmosphere. The core of the small homes is a common living room, complemented by a large, open kitchen, lots of windows and other amenities. The 10 residents may bring their own furniture, including pieces for the living room. Meals will be cooked in the home, and all will eat together around a family-style table. Outside are fenced yards and a small patio in front.

McAlilly and Dr. Bill Thomas, a United Methodist and founder of the Eden Alternative, helped develop the Green House Project, along with members of Thomas’ organization. The New York-based Eden Alternative is a system of elder care designed for retirement communities. UM Senior Services, a self-supporting agency affiliated with the Mississippi Annual Conference, has adopted the Eden Alternative for all of its facilities.

The Eden Alternative is a philosophy that seeks to change the environment of today’s nursing homes and other long-term care institutions by making life better for those who live and work there. Its core principle is that housing for the elderly must be habitats for human beings, not sterile medical institutions. The Eden Alternative is dedicated to eliminating the loneliness, helplessness and boredom that make life intolerable in many nursing homes.

Those involved in the Green House Project wanted to find a better way to care for frail elders, or those who need skilled nursing assistance. McAlilly says the idea grew out of numerous conversations over a period of years.

"We conceived the idea of a small home for elders that provides as much of the things of a home as possible," he says. "This home will be state-of-the-art technologically and will provide all the services of a nursing home but in ways not offered before."

UM Senior Services has four units under construction, with the first scheduled to start receiving residents May 2-3. Plans call for eventually moving all 140 residents of the Cedars nursing home on the Traceway Retirement Community campus into Green Houses, McAlilly says.

Jude Rabig, executive director of the Green House Project, spent a week in Mississippi training those who will work in the homes. Actively involved in nursing home reform for many years, Rabig says she’s excited about the possibilities of the Green House Project.

"There are only two groups we consistently institutionalize for life – murderers and frail elders. Everyone else can eventually get out of an institution," she says. "There is no reason why frail elders can’t live in a home like this."

Watching the training, the amount of thought that went into how the homes will operate is evident. Rabig points out to the 10 or so "shahbazim," as the universal workers of the Green Houses are called, that when they smell something cooking, they probably get hungry. The same is true for elders. By cooking the meals in the homes, residents are more likely to become hungry and eat better. The fact they’ve helped plan the menus should also be a plus.

All of the workers have experience in nursing homes. Rabig spent time showing them techniques for dealing with everyday issues that allow the elders to maintain their dignity, yet still receive the care they need.

For example, while discussing dementia, Rabig had a shahbaz play the role of an elder trying to communicate a need. Rabig pointed out how traditional nursing homes usually handle the situation and how it should be handled in a Green House.

"This is a step in the right direction," says Matt Belue, a shahbaz. "If we do our jobs, we’re both better off. We will have more one-on-one time and be better able to nurture, sustain and protect (the elders)."

Samantha Fullilove says she likes the idea of residents having more control over their own lives. "At a nursing home, they can’t make their own decisions. We have to decide," she says. "Here, we let them make decisions."

Belue says she likes the fact that she will get to know the residents better than in a traditional nursing home. "We’ll take care of them every day," she says. "We can become a family together."

The shahbazim will have more input into residents’ care, she notes, contrasting that with nursing homes, where nurses usually make all the decisions. By being in close contact with a small group of elders, a shahbaz will be able to make better decisions, she says.

The workers will be a mix of current UM Senior Services employees and newcomers, McAlilly says. UM Senior Services looked for those with a commitment to elder care, he says. All workers are certified nurses’ aides.

The Green House Project has attracted interest from elder care groups around the United States. Thomas was able to secure a grant that has paid for the shahbazim training, and leading researchers in the field are already studying the project.

Dr. Rosalie A. Kane, an expert on quality-of-life issues for the aging, is leading a team of researchers exploring the concept. She and team member Lois Cutler visited Tupelo March 6.

The research team will watch the development of Green Houses from various perspectives, including those of health and social services personnel in the community and state. In addition, they want to gain knowledge from the experiences of seniors living in the Green Houses, their families and those who provide care for the elders.

The lessons learned from the planning and implementation of the Green House concept in Tupelo will be applied to similar projects across the nation. Besides additional Green Houses in Tupelo, others are planned for Nebraska and Michigan. Tabitha Health Care Services, owned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will operate one in Lincoln, Neb., and local government will operate another one in Powers, Mich.

Each of the initial Green House buildings is about 6,000 square feet and cost about $480,000 to build. UM Senior Services already owned the land.

"The Green House Project addresses a key problem in the structure of nursing homes today, providing treatment to people in a setting governed by strict routines," Kane says.

"The Green House is designed to provide that same care and treatment for people in a normal, home-like setting. It will be exciting to see the concept become a reality."

The Green House developers have been creative in meeting state requirements without taking away the "homey" feel, McAlilly says. Certain telltale signs of a nursing home, such as a nurse’s station, have been moved behind closed doors. Lights over each door that signal assistance is needed have been incorporated into a unique design.

Each resident will wear a small transmitter that, when pressed, will signal a nurse. Response time should be no more than five minutes – about standard in a nursing home, McAlilly says. While shahbazim will serve a single home, nurses will rotate among several.

Once Senior Services decided to embrace the Green House Project, a presentation to the Mississippi Department of Health was necessary. McAlilly says the state requires nursing care facilities to meet 114 criteria. The new Green House model met 111 criteria immediately. Two items had to be approved by someone who could not attend the entire meeting, and the third has since been met.

Response among Cedars residents and their families has been mostly positive, McAlilly says. Some are taking a wait-and-see approach, while others are enthusiastic, he says.

"I’ve never had anyone call and say they wanted to move into a nursing home until they had to," McAlilly says. "Every time a story about the Green Houses is in the paper, we get calls from people asking to move in."

Much of the landscaping is being left to the residents. They will choose plants for inside and outside, where a fenced patio area has room for a small flower garden. Those who are able will be encouraged to take part in planting. Members of the Master Gardener program at Mississippi State University will assist them.

Standing on the cusp of a groundbreaking project is heady stuff, but McAlilly hasn’t forgotten the first two words in his organization’s name – United Methodist.

"I’m proud of the United Methodist Church because of its support for, honor and respect of elders, and its ability 35 years ago to see the need to provide meaning and abundant life to elders," says McAlilly, the son and brother of United Methodist clergy.

"When we do what we do, it is because of the church. Our organization believes it is called by God and the church to be at the forefront of providing meaning and quality of life for elders."

More information on the Green House Project is available at http://thegreenhouseproject.com online.

Woodrick is editor of the Mississippi United Methodist Advocate, the newspaper of the United Methodist Church’s Mississippi Annual Conference.


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May 1, 2003
Initiative on children, poverty, takes many forms

DALLAS (UMNS) – This summer, more than 500 children will have daily, one-on-one reading time with United Methodist volunteers in churches across the city. The kids will receive a hot lunch. And they will learn about Jesus.

Project Transformation, a program of the North Texas Annual (regional) Conference, will be staffed by 57 college-age students and more than 1,000 volunteers. It has become so successful that other conferences have launched or are planning similar ministries.

It is among many examples of how one conference is responding creatively to the United Methodist Council of Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty. Launched in 1996, the initiative has become a focal point for the church’s ministry around the world. The international council received an update from its initiative task force during an April 28-May 2 meeting in the Dallas suburb of Addison.

"We live in a time of almost boundless capacity for fear," said Gary Gunderson, director of the Interfaith Health Program at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta. "The challenge that I know you live with on a daily basis is the question, ‘Is it possible to systemically build the capacity for hope (on) the same scale as the fear?’"

Never before has there been a time when people could imagine that every child could grow to maturity without the burdens of hunger and poverty, he said. He reminded the bishops of a meeting several years ago, as the initiative was being developed, when those gathered were "stunned" after spending time reflecting on what Jesus and John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had to say about children and poverty.

"This is an initiative that is clearly designed to be in line with the incendiary hopes of Wesley at a time when it is possible to implement in a way that has never been true before," Gunderson said.

Sarah Wilke, Dallas Area coordinator for the initiative, gave the bishops a report from the front lines, telling how Project Transformation and other ministries are changing lives.

John Wesley Foundry Ministries, for example, sought out a Dallas neighborhood in need and without a church presence of any kind. Wilke found a neighborhood defined by strip clubs and bars, with an apartment community of 5,000 children under the age of 12 and living below the poverty line.

"Today, a young United Methodist pastor, two seminary students and a growing cadre of volunteers are reaching deep into the lives of those children and their families," Wilke said. On Ash Wednesday, they launched a new church in the preacher’s home in the neighborhood.

"The initiative has helped people find their place in the story of faith," said Pamela Couture, a consultant to the initiative task force and associate professor of pastoral theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y. Couture analyzed 19 interviews that were conducted this year with annual conference coordinators for the initiative.

One coordinator said the initiative was taking her annual conference back to its Wesleyan roots. John Wesley’s ideas are being "reintroduced (and) re-energized, moving us … to help ‘the least of these,’" the coordinator said.

She likened the development of the initiative’s relationships to a root system. "In one place, there are shoots of connection between Shalom Zones (community renewal areas) and congregations and the initiative; in another between congregations and social services; in a third, between … missionaries and the initiative and congregations; in a fourth, between congregations in the U.S. and in Africa," she said. The question is, "How can the church discern and support the emerging networks doing ministry?" she said.

"A cutting edge of the initiative has been congregational renewal," Couture said. One area coordinator told of a dying church that adapted to its changing neighborhood by reaching out to Hispanic people. As new people came into the congregation, ministries such as English and Spanish classes were launched.

Area coordinators affirmed the value of having a bishop’s initiative, saying support from the church’s top leaders boosts the morale of people involved in ministries to the children and poor, providing "an antidote against the isolation, depression and burnout" that many experience. It also has been a morale booster for bishops, she added.

Bishop Ann B. Sherer, chairperson of the initiative task force and leader of the church’s Missouri Area, said the bishops are trying to discern next steps. They will soon publish a third paper on the initiative, "The Beloved Community," and a study guide for congregations, Community with Children and the Poor, has just been released through Cokesbury, a unit of the United Methodist Publishing House.

During their meeting, the bishops received material for use in discussing the initiative at their annual (regional) conference gatherings, occurring in May and June in the United States and at other times elsewhere around the world.

"The task force wants to make a holy intervention in your annual conference agenda," Bishop Beverly Shamana told the council. Shamana, a task force member, leads the church’s San Francisco Area, which includes Northern California and Nevada.

Several conferences have sponsored children’s marches on state capitals, urging legislators to put priority on children and the poor during the budget process. Shamana said plans are under way for similar marches in state capital cities of Sacramento, Calif., and Reno, Nev. "We want the children to make connections with the lawmakers," she explained.

Sherer told United Methodist News Service she senses that God is using experiences with the poor to reshape the church. "There’s a renewing energy that we can be a church that reaches a variety of peoples and that is as diverse as God longs us to be."


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May 1, 2003
Bishops’ appeal changes lives in Africa – and the U.S.

DALLAS (UMNS) – Thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- most of them children and teen-agers and their families -- can attest to the power of the United Methodist Church’s "Hope for the Children of Africa" appeal.

The appeal, launched by the denomination’s Council of Bishops in 1998, has resulted in five new schools in the denomination’s North Katanga Area, according to Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Ntambo, who leads the churches in that region. Those schools, erected since 2000, are educating more than 4,000 young people, from primary school children to college students.

"There is hope now," Ntambo told United Methodist News Service. "We are living that hope."

The North Katanga story was one of many shared in a report on the appeal at the international United Methodist bishops’ gathering April 27-May 2 meeting in Addison, Texas. The appeal grew out of the Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty.

"When we as a council proposed the appeal, we set for ourselves a very ambitious goal: $12 million," said Bishop Elias Galvan, chairperson of the council’s Hope for the Children of Africa Committee and leader of the church’s Seattle Area.

Galvan said he is confident that the goal will be met by the time the church’s four-year period of work toward it ends in 2004. He noted that $10 million has been raised already, with $8 million donated through the Advance Special for the appeal, and the remainder given directly from European and U.S. conferences to their counterparts in Africa.

The council approved three recommendations from the committee. The first reaffirmed an earlier decision by the bishops to give priority to building two schools for children in each of the church’s African episcopal areas. The committee asked that the committee make future decisions regarding undesignated money based upon recommendations from the bishops of Africa.

In each of Africa’s episcopal areas, at least one school is finished or is about to be finished, and in some cases, two have been built, he said.

Two schools had been envisioned for North Katanga in 2000, when the council gave the church in that area $500,000. The results exceeded expectations, with the opening of a primary school, secondary school and three colleges.

Because of the denomination’s emphasis on schools, 10 of Africa’s 11 episcopal areas now have equipment for making building blocks not only for schools but also churches and parsonages, Galvan said.

Besides changing lives in Africa, the appeal is changing the lives of people in places like Missouri, where 362 churches have formed covenant – and personal – relationships with United Methodists in Mozambique. Those ties began forming a year before the appeal was actually launched.

"We’ve raised $1.3 million over the last seven years," said Bishop Ann B. Sherer, who leads the church’s Missouri Area. Last year alone, the Missouri churches sent $250,000 to Mozambique, she said.

The Missouri churches pledge $900 for every pastor in Mozambique. The money goes to Bishop Joao Somane Machado for allocation where needed. Sherer’s area supports the entire staff and the district superintendents in the southern African country. Missouri congregations also are working to support the pensions of retired pastors, which are currently $35 a year.

The relationship has changed the Missouri congregations. "It’s made Mozambique part of our family," Sherer said.

A staff person on each side of the Atlantic keeps the information flowing back and forth. "We know when there’s a death in the church. We know when there’s a train wreck. We know when there’s a flood," Sherer said.

"It has been life-changing for us," she said.

Ntambo reported that his pastors once had to walk 10 days to get to the annual (regional) conference gathering. Today, travel time is down to one or two days, thanks to the gift of 2,000 bicycles from other conferences. Churches also have enabled North Katanga to buy 243 cows, ensuring not only a source of nutrition but income for many people.

Bishop Robert Fannin of the Birmingham (Ala.) Area and Bishop Alfred Johnson of the New Jersey Area shared accounts of how their churches are responding to the appeal. Johnson’s congregations have forged a close relationship with churches in Liberia, while United Methodists in Alabama are doing the same with their brothers and sisters in Mozambique.

In an interview after his report to the bishops’ council, Galvan said the most important objective of the appeal has been establishing relationships between Africa and the rest of the United Methodist Church. That is key to educating people about Africa, and he urges churches to continue emphasizing partnerships.

"Every conference has raised money," he said, "but not every conference has established a partnership."


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May 1, 2003
As bishops meet, spouses experience mission, Dallas style
By Joan LaBarr*

DALLAS (UMNS) – As United Methodist bishops met in business sessions in a suburban hotel, 44 of their spouses rolled up their sleeves and went to work in churches and other mission sites across the city.

The spouses fanned out across the city April 28, assigned to several sites as the United Methodist Council of Bishops met for their weeklong spring gathering in the Dallas suburb of Addison.

Kay Croft, a volunteer who helped coordinate the day with the preschool children at Bethlehem Center in South Dallas, described the scene as spouses--many retired educators--sat down to read with the children. One child looked up and asked Ann Hearn, wife of retired Bishop Woodrow S. Hearn, "Will you be my grandmother?"

Sarah Wilke, North Texas Conference director of urban strategies, said the husband and wives of United Methodist bishops spent the day embracing children, serving food and drink to homeless people, sewing with senior citizens, painting rooms and assisting immigrant families.

The spouses accomplished much more than helping needy people, Wilke added. "They affirmed our ministers and mission workers in the value of their daily efforts."

The concept of "Hands On Mission Experience" began eight months ago as the Dallas Area host committee for the bishops’ gathering planned activities for spouses. "We wanted a week of activities that would highlight the best of what the North Texas Conference is about," said Wilke.

The spouses had a choice of mission opportunities, which included:

• Reading with children at Dallas Bethlehem Center and East Grand Foundry.
  
• Working in the Immigration Clinic at Urban Park United Methodist Church.
  
• Serving in "Sing and Sew with Senior Citizens" at Wesley-Rankin Community Center.
  
• Painting and caulking at the urban work camp hub at Tyler Street United Methodist Church.
  
• Working in a food pantry by following food from the North Texas Food Bank to the Oak Cliff United Methodist Church food pantry and after-school café.
  
• Serving food to homeless people at Crossroads/Harwood Crossing, a joint ministry of First United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church in downtown Dallas.
  

The international Council of Bishops, which meets twice a year, includes nearly 100 active and retired bishops from the United States, Europe, Africa and the Philippines.

LaBarr is director of communications for the United Methodist Church’s North Texas Annual Conference.


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April 23, 2003
UMC.org plans May 15 online chat with missions chief Day

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) – United Methodists will have an opportunity to chat online with the top executive of the church’s missions agency May 15.

The online conversation with the Rev. R. Randy Day, staff head of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern time. People can participate in the event, "Mission in the 21st Century: A Chat with Randy Day," by logging on to www.UMC.org, the denomination’s official online ministry.

Day will outline his vision for the future of mission and discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead. The audience will submit questions and comments in real time directly to him, so participants will guide the chat’s direction and focus. Topics are expected to include:

• The reality of the church having to do more with fewer resources.
  
• The church’s role in helping rebuild Iraq after the war.
  
• The Board of Global Ministries’ financial situation.
  
• The challenges the church faces as it becomes increasingly global.
  

Day was elected chief staff executive of the board in October, succeeding the Rev. Randolph Nugent, who held the position for 21 years. Day, 55, had overseen the agency’s program areas of Evangelism and Church Growth as well as Community and Institutional Ministries since September 2000. Before then, he served pastorates in Connecticut and New York and was a district superintendent for New York City from 1984 to 1990.

He has been involved in mission work around the world and has been active on human rights and peace issues.

"Mission in the 21st Century: A Chat with Randy Day" is being produced by www.UMC.org, an initiative of United Methodist Communications, in cooperation with the Board of Global Ministries. More details are available at the Web site.

This report was based on a press release from the www.UMC.org staff at United Methodist Communications.
United Methodist advocates universal health care

May 1, 2003 News media contact: Joretta Purdue_ (202) 546-8722_ Washington {249}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) – An executive of the United Methodist social-action agency spoke in favor of universal health care at a rally supporting such a resolution in the House of Representatives.

The four-hour, open-air rally in a park across the street from the U.S. capitol featured several members of Congress and representatives of such organizations as the National Health Law Program, American Public Health Association, National Medical Association and Association of American Medical Colleges. The ethnic congressional caucuses sponsored the April 29 event.

"For too many in today’s America, health care is not there when you need it," said the Rev. Jackson Day, the United Methodist Board of Church and Society executive who works on health and wholeness issues.

"Our major faith bodies, including my own, consider health care a right for all, not a privilege for those who can afford it," Day declared. "In the richest nation of the world, lack of coverage for over 40 million uninsured, who thereby receive less health care than others or must go into bankruptcy to pay for the care they receive, is a moral outrage."

He joined other speakers in supporting House Concurrent Resolution 99, which directs Congress to enact legislation that provides comprehensive health care for all Americans. It has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Health subsequent to introduction on March 18.

In his remarks, Day urged affordable health care, efficiently managed and available to all regardless of color, language or locality.

"We need a system that supports prevention and early intervention," he said. "We need a health care system that provides continuity of care and coverage."

Day said U.S. people need a health-care system with a sufficient number of qualified caregivers who are paid adequately and in timely fashion. He also advocated a system that allows patients to select their providers to best meet their own needs. The present system is so cumbersome that it is harder and harder for providers to offer quality care, so that "the health care system itself is a leading cause of death," he said.

"We are already spending twice as much as other developed countries for health care," he observed. "Our current system costs too much, covers too little and excludes too many."

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