Claimed, gathered and sent

Since September of last year, I have been informally involved with Grant Memorial Hospice. I did the orientation, took the necessary tests, and we just had to wait for the background check to come back. That should have taken just a very short time...and we waited...and they called...and they faxed and refaxed...and called...every few days. The hold up was with the PA Dept. of Motor Vehicles. Hospice kept requesting my driving history and the DMV would say they never received the request. So the running joke was about what a shady character I must be. Finally, last week, I was officially able to be a volunteer!!!!! Many of Pr. Cantu's interns have worked with hospice, but they never had this much trouble getting all the background information on one. Hmmm.... Friday, I was able to join Joyce, the hospice social worker as a volunteer for the very first time. The people we visited were Lutheran, so I was able to bring communion to them from our service at Grace. They were a deligh...

Yesterday while I was at teaching parish, Ray, still at Seeing Eye in NJ, took new guide dog Amity to church for the first time. All went really well until...communion distribution. Amity was seated beside Ray who was kneeling and waiting for the pastor to give him the bread. As soon as the pastor offered Ray the bread, Amity stretched, reaching her head forward like she wanted communion too. Ray, the pastor, and the Seeing Eye trainer lost it. They couldn't help but laugh. That was Amity's first church visit. She's already a good Lutheran dog. As one friend remarked, "Okay - so THAT dog needs to go to First Communion class!" For Abby it's compline, for Amity it's communion. What can one do with dogs like that? If only all God's people were as interested in the means of grace as these dogs are! Flickr pictures