Menno Place initiated the Team Member Appreciation Tea in February 2013 and holds this event annually.  This year it was held on March 28, 2017 recognizing staff for their contributions in the past year.  At the event staff are recognized for their years of service, excellent attendance and three special awards are given in the categories of “Living our Values”, “Creative Innovation”, and “Everyday Champion”.

The leadership team nominates candidates for the “Living our Values” and “Creative Innovation” awards, and co-workers nominate candidates for the “Everyday Champion” award.

Everyday Champion (nominated by co-workers)

The Everyday Champion Award recognizes an employee of Menno Place for showing daily passion and commitment for quality care with the residents. The nominee is a true team player whose actions or attitudes have improved the workplace in a meaningful way by nurturing relationships, inspiring colleagues and residents and demonstrating a high level of integrity and compassion. The recipient of the Everyday Champion Award was nominated by a colleague for this award.

Ursula Batke – Reception, Menno Home   Winner of the EveryDay Champion Award

Ursula goes above and beyond  her job description in informing families with the information they need or a hug.  She has been known to come in outside her work hours to assist in emergencies.  She uses her talents to play piano at memorial services and at Christmas for singalongs.  She is helpful to all staff who enter her work area and is kind to the residents that come to her window.  She is a Menno hero.

Ursula is especially valued by the Recreation team as she is always going above and beyond to look out for us.  She greets our entertainers and organizes the money for our bus trips and special events.  Her compassion and respect for the residents is always eviden

We appreciate Ursula so much and we can’t thank her enough for all she does for us.

Ursula shows unusual compassion and care for residents, families, friends and staff.  Her sharp mind has caught things missed and keeps staff of many different departments organized when they may have forgotten important happenings in their day.  She connects and wishes us all a good day and is the smile up front that says all is well at Menno Home today.

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Living Our Values Award

The recipient of the Living Our Values Award was nominated because they are outstanding in their capacity to live out the values of Menno Place – Stewardship, Excellence, Respect, Values-Driven, Innovation, Compassion and Encouragement.

Two winners were chosen as both had significant nominations.  Debbie Marshall  and Kim Powell are the winners.

Debbie Marshall – Health Care Aide, Menno Hospital

The Nominator wrote:    I am nominating Debbie Marshall for her excellent demonstration of the values we aspire to at Menno Place.  She is a compassionate and kind care giver who daily demonstrates respect to both her colleagues and the residents.  I have witnessed Debbie remain positive and keep the spirit of an open mind in the face of challenges.  Debbie is often used with the orientation of new hires and we get feedback from the new employees of the excellent orientation they feel they receive when partnered with her for orientation.  Debbie has also volunteered to be part of the infection control team to promote hand hygiene and encourages and practices best practice for the team.

Kim Powell – Employee Benefits / HR Coordinator

The Nominator wrote:  Kim is an excellent candidate for the “Living Our Values” award as she demonstrates kindness, compassion, excellence, encouragement and stewardship in her work at Menno Place.  Kim is respectful and thoughtful in her work with staff who are going through difficult situations that affect their lives and their work.  Whether helping them maneouver through to get their benefits, completing paperwork for disability or meeting to prepare for retirement or extended leaves, Kim is compassionate and is a great help during these difficult times.  Kim exhibits a true “servant” heart and strives to listen and understand those she is serving – the staff at Menno Place – in order to make their load a little lighter.

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 Creative Innovation

The Creative Innovation Award recognizes an employee of Menno Place for an idea or solution that has been approved by a supervisor and implemented in order to significantly improve operations or the quality of service for residents at Menno Place.

Frank Rille – Maintenance, Menno Home

Frank created the design for the motorized laundry hauler. He used an electric wheelchair from our special equipment supply.  He used one  that was no longer rentable. The foot pad would be where the driver stands. The controller would be used to move forward, turn and slow down. There would be good ground clearance and the ability to support up to 200lbs of laundry which allowed for damp or wet laundry to be included in the load. Like a power wheelchair, this laundry hauler is able to cover a lot of territory with a battery that recharges and can drive for over 20kms between charging.

A completely efficient Power Laundry Hauler that is designed to move laundry in comfort and safety. It can move up to 200lbs of laundry without risk of injury to our team members. This has saved time and has made it possible to provide unlimited personal laundry services for our independent apartment tenants.

The Laundry Hauler is used three times per week to zip from one building to the next to collect soiled laundry and return clean laundry to tenants. It moves easily from outdoors to indoors allowing the laundry team to efficiently and safely collect personal laundry for transport to and from the laundry room. The Laundry Hauler travels four city blocks in each of its laundry rounds around the campus.

 

Book Review by Barrie McMaster

Rich in Years; Finding Peace and Purpose in a Long Life

Johann Christoph Arnold
Plough Publishing: 2013

Some books on seniors issues get right down to the nubby bits of aging that many oldsters and adult youngsters do not want to face. But this is a book that attempts to encourage and inspire.  It provides practical advice and a brace of testimonies designed to cheer seniors as they contemplate the realities of being really quite old.  It doesn’t ‘tackle’ old age, but instead celebrates it.  The author quotes a former secretary, Ellen Keiderling: “Although I am eighty, and struggling with old age, I don’t want to go back to twenty-five.  These are the best years of my life.”

Arnold is an experienced pastor and he does not duck the issues. “We may fear losing our mind, our memory and our independence.  We also fear loneliness, pain and suffering. Many worry that they have not lived as they should.” But he says all of these fears can be overcome. “Growing old doesn’t have to be a prison of hopelessness and despair.” He says, think instead of your senior years as a time of opportunity.

He argues that the most helpful view of aging is to realize that a long life is a blessing from God, and that it comes with responsibilities to others, including the next generation. He says God himself supplies what we need, even if the needs are new to an aging person’s experience. “Growing older can be a gift, but only if we surrender ourselves to God’s plan.  Then we can stop complaining about things we can’t do anymore and realize that God is finding new ways to use us.”  Arnold sprinkles his arguments with encouraging scriptures.

In a nutshell, that is what the book is about.  On the one hand, it’s a simple book, but there are many paths to explore and many encouraging stories from friends and acquaintances to enrich the reader.  It draws on sentiment, but not sentimentality.

Arnold has his own stories.  He confesses that he didn’t want to think about old age, but obstacles began to appear, bit by bit. “First, I lost my voice. ..Then I had trouble with my heart. Both of my eyes needed surgery, and one eye is completely blind.” But he and his wife still go for walks, he can still read, and can still type to do his writing.  Then offers up one of my favorite quotes in the book: “My body is aging, but I am not!”

He speaks about the need for a sense of humour (like the bumper sticker “Old age is not for sissies!”)  He argues that everyone, no matter how old, can find a sense of fulfillment, and everyone should give thanks each day.  He writes about the need for community, the need to find purpose, the need to cherish and foster one’s faith, the need to be intentional in how we live.  “How we grow old is far more important than how old we grow.”

The author devotes a chapter to finding peace in the face of imminent death, adding that true peace requires effort.  He tells stories of how a neighborhood woman and a former small town police chief had to work hard to forgive. Arnold says, “We can choose to let sleeping dogs lie, or we can choose to confront them. The first choice is certainly easier, but I have found that those who take the harder path often end up better equipped to face their future. They’re not weighed down by the burdens of the past.” He cites Jesus’ admonition to forgive, saying it may be necessary to ‘forgive seventy times seven’.

He writes of Rachael, a cancer patient and resident of his neighborhood who called him her Chief Rabbi.  Facing death, she longed for forgiveness, ultimately asked to ‘pray a prayer of gratefulness’ and prayed not to die alone. God answered.  Her estranged brother came to see her, they forgave each other, “and after that, she was ready to let go of everything; she had found peace.”

Arnold also tells the story of a police chief named Charles who had grown up in an alcoholic household, and seemed unable to shake off a hatred of his mother. He finally visited his now-old mother in his boyhood home, and was able to forgive her. Arnold quotes Charles as saying, “It was as if the weight of a large knapsack I had been carrying for years fell from my shoulders.  At that instant, my mother changed from being the fire-breathing dragon I remembered…. to the frail, sick, elderly woman she was – the mother I never really had.”  Charles added, “It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.  Listen to the small voice of conscience and forgive, even if it’s the last thing you want to do.”

It’s not just forgiving that can be hard work. There is the business of confession, “another crucial tool to finding peace.  Of course,” Arnold adds, “we don’t need to wait until we’re old to do this.”  There is a story of a fellow elder in the author’s church who found himself facing death from an aggressive cancer. The man “made a sincere effort to clear up any misunderstandings he had,” and gained a peace about giving up further medical intervention.  He told Arnold, “My situation has forced me to reflect on what it means to turn to God and totally trust him.”

Arnold includes a chapter on survival after a spouse dies. He recalls many couples in his ministry time that had gone through tough times and hurts, good times and joys over their years together. “When you’ve experienced so much together, it’s no wonder that the surviving spouse is deeply affected, but in every instance,” he adds, “I noticed a remarkable ability to accept the circumstances.” He tells of a husband who prayed, as his wife died, “Thank you, God, thank you.  Thank you for sixty-one years together.  Thank you, thank you.” Arnold wonders how a person can take that view as his beloved is passing. Then he answers himself.  “Perhaps the key is not to stifle one’s pain, but to allow oneself to truly grieve.” Too often, he says, we try to return as quickly as possible to “normal” – not a useful idea.

For some, death will come relatively quickly; for others, it will be lengthy, painful, hard to bear and hard to watch and share in.  Arnold remembers a friend who loved his garden, his truck, his friends and his children and most of all his wife. She told Arnold she heard only one sad thing from her husband’s lips: “It takes so long to die.” But even then, she said it was not voiced as a complaint.

The author believes, “The peace and purpose we feel in our old age corresponds directly to how well we grieve.”

The book, while citing many scriptures and biblical sources, does not attempt explicitly to raise the question of peoples’ relationship to Jesus, as some evangelical Christians might wish. That issue however can hardly be escaped, given the rich biblical allusions, the nature of the topic and the stories in the book.

Arnold says he and Verena, his wife of forty-seven years, grew close to many like-minded people during their interviewing process for Rich in Years. They found that each of those people had “an incredible story that inspired us to keep going.”  And that is the strength of the book.  Encouragement and community among people who share a common outlook does wonders to build a bracing optimism that aging and death are also part of God’s plan.

 

As you likely know, Menno Place has been hit by a west coast snow storm! With over 38cms falling in Abbotsford, it has taken a skilled and dedicated to team to ensure safety and care without interruption!

All is well at Menno Place in this snowstorm! We are proud of our staff who are dedicated to their service of seniors everyday – and even when the weather is crazy snowy! Parking lots are cleared for visitors. Generators have been checked and are ready for any power outages. Service and care continue without interruption. Seniors are warm, well-fed and safe! Our teams are absolutely amazing!

Thank you to all the staff who ensure the safety and care for more than 700 seniors everyday! All are warm, well-fed, safe and cared for!