"Welcome to our website!"

 by Paul Falkowski, Executive Director   

     Welcome to our website, and welcome to Desert Ministries.  For the past fourteen years, we have been serving the nursing homes and assisted living facilities in our area.  I hope that as you visit this website that you will be moved by the stories of our volunteers, the pictures of our outreaches, and that you too will become one of our volunteers, or that you will start a DM outreach in your area.

     For those of us that are younger, it's difficult for us to understand how painful loneliness can be.  We are fortunate to be able to move about freely, decide our daily activities, and even change our minds about those plans.  But for many nursing home residents, they have lost that freedom, and with it their sense of value.  For many of them, they feel alone and rejected, useless and having little or nothing to offer.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.  Instead, they have come to a point in their living, where they have accumulated a life time of experiences, a wealth of knowledge and a sense of what life is all about.  They bring all of this information together to form what we would call wisdom.  Wisdom is the accumulation of our life experiences, our education, our relationships, and hindsight.  People living in nursing homes have a lot to offer, if we would just let them.

     Mother Theresa while visiting a nursing home here in the U.S. commented: "There is a poverty worse than having no food, or being homeless, or being ill.  It is the pain of loneliness and rejection."  What an amazing thing to hear coming from the lips of one who served the very poorest of the poor.  A nursing home resident confirmed this when unsolicited she commented: "The emotional pain I feel is far greater than any physical pain I feel."  

     Our annual campaign theme: "hope thru love" means just that.  Without a vision people perish.  We give back hope to people who may feel hopeless. In turn, they offer us hope through their shared life experiences and their wisdom, and it's all because we start with the notion of reaching out to each other in love.

     If you don't think you can offer your time, then let me encourage you to offer your financial support.  Every organization needs financial support and we are no different.  We are able to do all that we do, because of your generosity.  Please consider giving to a ministry who advocates for community involvement through volunteerism, education, and raising community awareness.  The elderly are the truly forgotten people of our society.  Remember them today with a generous gift.

          Our mission:

"We value the life and wisdom of the elderly by creating opportunities for people to serve those living and working in nursing homes."

          Our core values:

We value:
	l  The life and wisdom of the elderly.
	l  Love and commitment to the elderly.
	l  Friendship with the elderly.

          Vision:

"To see that Desert Ministries becomes a valued resource concerning the care of the elderly."

     

       May God bless you richly in this new year, and I look forward to hearing from you. Through Our Great Redeemer and Friend,

                               Paul Falkowski, Executive Director