My dad, Ed, mom, Flossie, and I have a music ministry together in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. We all play musical instruments. My mom provides our rhythm with her guitar and sings harmony. I play an electric mandolin and sing melody. Dad plays tenor on the harmonica.

Due to my folks advanced ages—88 and 85 respectively—we have cut back from having a ministry meeting every other day. We now have three facilities we go to every other week. We have a sing along program beginning with golden oldies along with a joke, to attract those that aren’t believers in our risen Lord, followed by gospel songs familiar to the elderly and across the denominations. I give a situation story and make spiritual application and have prayer. We greet everyone we can either before or after our meeting and try to learn their names. We have about twenty participants in each meeting.

I also minister at one of our local hospitals as an on-call chaplain and am secretary of the Pastoral Care Ministries. I go to the hospital every morning—Monday through Friday—to handle secretarial work. Friday is my on-call day and I also do some room-to-room visitation. I am the secretary at our independent Baptist church.

Other avenues of ministry are home visits to elderly shut-ins and making and sending greeting cards. My mom had a massive heart attack on November 1st and our music ministry has been put on hold pending her recuperation. However, I am still keeping contact with the participants in our ministry meetings on a one-on-one basis.

Please pray on our behalf that God would enable us to continue to be used as a team in the ministries He has given us here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
~Rose Waltner