About our church...
Mill Creek was first organized under the
Buckhorn Presbyterian Church in May, 1921
at the home of Frank Wagers. In 1937 Rev.
Roscoe E. Plowman from Jack’s Creek took
over the church built the current Mill Creek
UMC
building for $600. “Preacher” Plowman
reorganized the church in 1938 as the Mill
Creek Evangelical Church. The church
became
Evangelical United Brethren in merger
of the Evangelical and United Brethren Churches
in 1946 and then United Methodist in 1968 with the merger between the EUB and ME Church.
Transforming lives...transforming communities...
Ruth lies in a nursing home bed in Hyden, Kentucky. She is almost motionless as she stares with her blue eyes into what only she and God see. She is no longer able to speak. She just stares or closes her eyes to the world around her – the wall she has been turned in her bed to face in order to prevent sores. How many people are there lying in beds in nursing homes and at home who have not been forgotten in the mind or heart, but who have been forgotten in terms of touch and connectedness?
Before her stroke Ruth was an active member of the Mill Creek United Methodist Church. She and two of her friends spent countless hours running a clothing outreach program. It was their incarnation of the “love of God” to the many families who lived along the creeks and back in the hollows. When Ruth and her friends were no longer able to run the clothing program it closed due to the extensive time commitment required to run it. The building out of which the program operated is locked up… in a way a symbol of Ruth being “locked within.”
But whereas the building stands alone, Ruth does not. She is part of the “body” and the ministry of the Mill Creek faith community. She is visited regularly even though it would be so easy to rationalize that a visit would make no difference. After all, she can’t talk and she just stares off into a place we cannot see or imagine. It would be easy to avoid visiting based on the discomfort of visiting a person where you have to do all the communicating.
They say that hearing is often intact even though it seems as though a person is no longer able to communicate or in touch with his or her surroundings. When you visit Ruth and hold her hand, there is no noticeable response. But does that mean she is unaware of the touch of another. How welcome the holding of her hand must be if she is able to feel – to know that she is connected – that her life matters. When you visit Ruth and speak to her she remains motionless, staring with her blue eyes, unless you mention names of those she worked with in the clothing program. The instant their names are mentioned there is movement in her face and you know instantly that she hears.
What if her world of touch was only that required for health care and the only words she heard had to do with “roll this way”, “now we’ll pull you up Ruth” and so on. What if there were no words about her life?...about what was in her heart and memories? What if there was no “holding of hands” and whispering the 23rd Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer or telling her about the people she holds in her heart now? What if no one prayed with her letting her know that God is the God of the nursing home as well as the God of heaven?
Jesus said: “What you do unto the least of these My sisters and brothers, you do unto Me.” Grace and the love of God not just to the children and youth, the shut in, the sick, the family in crisis but to people like Ruth. Ruth is just one of a number whose hands and hearing we touch “for” God. Your gifts of prayer and support make this “love through the journey” possible. We and she thank you.
