Volunteerism: The Language of
Love
This is what I mean when I talk of "a thousand points of light" — that vast galaxy of people and institutions working together to solve problems in their own backyard.
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH
During the worst days of World War II, a wounded G.I. sat up on his cot in a field hospital and watched a volunteer nurse dress the putrid wounds of a wounded soldier. The G.I. shook his head. "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars," he said.
With a smile the nurse replied, "Neither would I."
Voluntarism today is not limited to mobilization for war. It extends to city streets, playgrounds, classrooms, churches, mission fields, camps, and even to such mundane venues as mailing rooms of service agencies. It began a long time ago in Jerusalem when twelve apostles appealed to Jewish Christians
Page 100
in the early church to make certain that Greek widows had enough food to eat and a place to live.
"Voluntarism ... began a long time ago in Jerusalem when twelve apostles appealed to Jewish Christians in the early church to make certain that Greek widows had enough food to eat and a place to live." |
When I was young, voluntarism was rather undramatic service. Volunteers included bell ringers at sidewalk Salvation Army Christmas donation buckets, candy stripers in hospitals, and service club members out doing a variety of activities on behalf of the needy. At my first missionary conference, which I attended in about 1930 as a teen-ager, speakers appealed not for volunteers but for young people to make lifelong commitments to countries far away among unevangelized people. Short-term missionary assignments were unknown.
Things changed with the social revolution of the 1960s. Social researcher Daniel Yankelovich noted that the Baby Boomers (the generation born between 1946 and 1964) "have the ability to look reality in the eye; they won't follow old, outmoded ideas out of sentiment.... This generation does not have a sentimental attachment to the old days. If there are new realities, they will face them."1
With the falling away of tradition comes a wonderful opportunity for senior citizens. Today people like us in the last third of life are signing on as volunteers in record numbers. We want to see and feel the need and work as partners.
Page 101
with those on the scene looking for solutions. If national and international vision is to be extended, short-term service is the key.
With your extra time, how about taking a look at the options for volunteer work open to you? Instead of booking passage on a Caribbean cruise, making reservations for a surfside hotel, or merely staying in the groove of established routine, sign on for a volunteer short-term mission. Call it a vacation with a purpose — a refreshing change for you and your spouse.
The eighties have been called the decade of avarice, but the nineties are shaping up as the age of altruism. From the commander-in-chief on down, the message is clear: get involved.
In a speech before a New York City business group, President George Bush unveiled his plan to promote volunteerism in America and beyond. "From now on in America," said George Bush to the cheering audience, "any definition of a successful life must include serving others." He believes that a democratic system must depend to a high degree on the volunteered time and energy of its members for its maintenance, stability, growth, and development.
A democratic social system — nation, state, community, organization, or group — is reliant on the volunteered time and energy of its members. A democratic social system provides the conditions for a personally satisfying, self-actualizing growth opportunity for each individual.
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
Volunteers are not a luxury anymore. If they all stayed home for one day, society in the United States would separate at the seams. Volunteer professionals produce materials in braille, document artifacts in local museums, ladle out soup at urban rescue missions and at mission stations half a world away, file materials and books, minister to the dying, fly
Page 102
planes, assist in blood drives, tend to babies in day care centers, teach skills, answer telephones, and even dress putrid wounds as did many volunteer nurses during the wars of our century.
As this book was readied for the press, a survey by the Independent Sector, an umbrella organization for most of the major charitable groups in the country, reported that 45 percent of those surveyed said they regularly volunteered — and more than a third of them reported spending more time on volunteer work in the last three years. In all, it is estimated that 80 million adults contributed a total of 19.5 billion hours, at a value of about $150 billion.
The United States government in the eighties drastically cut public funding of social services. Many of those cuts affected the youngest and poorest Americans, forcing charitable agencies to pick up where government left off. Volunteer groups today are stepping up their recruiting efforts, reaching out to those they once overlooked — including the elderly and the handicapped.
A governmental agency called RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) was established by ACTION, the National Volunteer Agency in Washington, D.C., in 1971 to fit volunteer opportunities to the needs of retired people. Half a million retired volunteers are serving through fifty-one thousand local organizations, giving sixty-four million hours of service each year. Retired executives help young people learn building and engineering skills; they tutor refugees in math and English; they play key roles in neighborhood crime prevention programs; they service telephone hotlines; they distribute food, salvage surplus produce from farms, organize libraries in prisons, and serve in whatever way their background skills have prepared them for serving.
In March 1991, the Peace Corps celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. More than 120,000 volunteers have been dispatched to more than 100 developing countries in all parts of the world. Peace Corps programs continue to provide assis-
Page 103
tance to nations in the traditional areas of development such as agriculture, health, education, community development, environment, and construction. New programs include computer training, small business enterprise, and urban planning. For further information write:
Peace Corps of the United States of America1990 K St., NW
Washington, DC 20526
Charles A. Larson, a professor of literature at American University, joined the Peace Corps at the age of twenty-four in 1962. "We need the spirit of the Peace Corps," he said in Newsweek's "My Turn" forum of the 22 July 1991 issue.
It was a transforming experience. I saw ways of life I would never have seen had I remained within the comfortable domain of my provincial Midwestern upbringing. For the first time, I learned to think of someone besides myself, to consider that there is no single way of observing a problem or answering a troubling question. I discovered that without the mutual tolerance and respect of other peoples' cultures, there is no possibility for harmony in our world.
Retired people, Dr. Larson believes, can lead the way in our do-nothing era.
STEREOTYPES ARE DISAPPEARING
A report in the 10 July 1989 issue of Newsweek stated that today's volunteers live in every neighborhood. Increasingly, they are "part of a group organized by employers or religious organizations, which still account for a full 20 percent of volunteer efforts."
Many of the old stereotypes are gone. The upper middle class housewife no longer spends her days at the garden club; today, working women are more likely to be in the trenches, working in humanitarian agencies for the good of the less
Page 104
fortunate. Men, as well, are volunteering nearly as often as women for leadership in agencies like Scouts and Little League.
Some agencies, such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) and AIDS groups, didn't exist a decade ago. Barbara Bush's championship of literacy has drawn much attention to that problem. Self-help groups are one of the fastest growing segments of the non-profit agencies. Organizations exist for everything from adult children of alcoholics to Resolve, for people with infertility problems.
Such social phenomena have caused traditional charities to change direction. Junior Leagues now focus on teenage pregnancy, women's issues, alcohol abuse in the home, and disadvantaged children, to mention a few. More than 50 percent of the Junior Leagues are employed full-time in other jobs.
Could the growing interest in public service of the nineties be a reaction to the excesses of the eighties? The gap is growing between the very rich and the hopelessly poor. Investment bankers are stepping around bag ladies on their way to work.
Once, people made a living; now, they're trying to make their lives and hold body and soul together.
In the late eighties, Stan Curtis, a forty-year-old stockbroker from Louisville, Kentucky, founded Kentucky Harvest, an all-volunteer agency that has distributed 1.6 million pounds of surplus food to the needy. Curtis's organization operates so efficiently that the founder needs no government money. In fact, he has rejected federal grants. "We run it like a business," he says.
Senior citizens, many of them retired, have always given more time than most. Now they are living longer and staying healthier.
Bill Oriol of the National Council on the Aging noted that there is "a genuine feeling that the time has come to make really organized use of older people." His organization has
Page 105
started a very successful program called Family Friends, which pairs older volunteers with children who have serious disabilities. Volunteers assist for several hours a week, providing for the parents a much-needed break. Still other agencies recruit retired people for tutoring or child care.
The idea of public service also attracts young people. Volunteer work is now part of the curriculum in approximately 25 percent of American colleges and of dozens of high schools. California has one of the most extensive efforts. Students in the state's twenty-nine public universities are encouraged — but not required — to perform thirty hours of community service annually. About a quarter of the system's 400,000 students are participating in the program.
Congress continually reviews bills that seek to make community service for young people a national priority. They range from proposals to set up programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s to a plan to give states money to expand volunteer opportunities for youths. One of the most controversial is a recent bill calling for a full-time program of civilian or military service through which volunteers would receive vouchers worth up to twelve thousand dollars per year of service. They could use these vouchers to pay for education, training, or a down payment on a house. After five years the program would replace current student loan programs.
Vacations with Purpose
Growing numbers of retired people are turning their vacations into short-term volunteer missions abroad. They are in mission with Christian friends and fellow church members. They might help a poor congregation in Guatemala, work in a dispensary in Calcutta, or perhaps assist in building a church in Africa. Afterward, for a few days, they might stay on for some deep-sea fishing, hunt for souvenirs, or visit museums, art galleries, and /or farms and ranches.
Page 106
John Maust reported in the April-June 1991 issue of Latin America Evangelist that the number of United States laity taking part in short-term missions projects reportedly grew six times over in the past ten years: from roughly 20,000 to 120,000. In that decade, says Doug Millham who, with his wife, Jackie, organized Discover the World to mobilize Christians for cross-cultural ministry, "the number of groups and organizations doing short-term missions has shot from a few dozen to more than 450.
"Just in the last ten years, short-term mission involvement has probably grown ten-fold in all categories. God is really at work doing something."
Why are so many retired people becoming involved in these short-term missions?
"The motivations are sometimes mixed," observed Dennis Massaro, director of the Office of Christian Outreach at Wheaton College, Illinois. "But what comes out of it... is real commitment to a lifetime of service and evangelism wherever people find themselves."
John Maust sees early retirees in the ranks of the volunteers, not just baby boomers. In a summary of the traits of the short-term missions phenomenon he wrote:
Page 107
Short-term teams are well received by most fellow Christians in the host countries. Of course, some may charge out to save the world, and in the process create more problems than they solve. But seniors are particularly skilled in moving out as learners and servants to build a true kingdom partnership with other members of the body of Christ. Christians everywhere welcome that. Nationals sense that the newcomers eagerly want to be used by God in new ways. They want
"Growing numbers of retired people are turning their vacations into short-term volunteer missions abroad." |
to be on the cutting edge. Short-term missions provide that opportunity.
Occasionally these short-term opportunities stretch into longer, more effective projects. I think of Denny and Jeanne Grindall, successful florists in Seattle, Washington. They wrestled for some time with the issue of what the Lord wanted them to do in their retirement years. They are warm, committed Christians, and the love of Christ shines through their entire being; but they both admit, "We're just ordinary people... very ordinary."
With a map of the world spread out before them, the Grindalls one day pinpointed the country of Kenya, East Africa, and decided to have a look as simple tourists. They put their floral business in the hands of someone they trusted and set out to visit the nomadic Masai people. What they found were tribal people living a primitive life with a poor diet and an extremely low life expectancy rate. The Grindalls saw chickens, pigs, and other animals living with humans in
Page 108
tiny mud huts. Together, Denny and Jeanne became determined to help improve the lot of these fascinating people.
With determination they returned to Seattle and began making plans to live for a while among the Masai to see what they could do to outline programs of community development. First on the list was a program to obtain much needed water, pig pens, and sanitation facilities. They wanted to give the Masai the benefit of their knowledge of horticulture which they had learned over many years growing flowers.
In only a few months they were able to see the fruit of their labors. Unsanitary huts were cleaned out; their diet improved; children suffering from malnutrition were given necessary supplements and a better diet. The lives of the entire tribe living in the hinterlands around the capital, Nairobi, were improved through the loving, caring concern of these Christians who put feet to their prayers.
J. Allan Peterson, founder of Family Concern, knows of a medical doctor in retirement who struggled with a lack of self-esteem and purpose. During his career he became outstanding in his medical specialty, receiving much recognition, honor, and praise. In retirement he was forgotten, unknown by a new generation. "They don't know who I am and they don't care," he said with despair.
Rather than drop totally out of circulation, he tried changing his focus. He offered his services part-time at the downtown mission/homeless shelter of his city and discovered new purpose and meaning to his retirement.
Another friend of Dr. Peterson's was a missionary church builder. He had been retired from his denomination for several years and was living in Palm Springs. After living at a relaxed pace for a few years, he decided that he wanted to make more of a contribution to the cause of Christ. He considered three large churches in different parts of the country, settled on one and offered his service half-time without remuneration. He sold his place and is moving to this major church in one of America's large cities, eager to get
Page 109
going again in the ministry. His fervency was caused by the proper value he placed on the heavenly prize.
An Encouraging Report
As a board member of Focus on the Family, I read carefully reports of volunteers published in the organization's publication and in chapel meetings at headquarters. In the September 1990 edition of Focus on the Family, author Doris Fell told of her encounter with Sabrina, a volunteer firefighter whom she met in a quaint restaurant and hotel beneath the craggy mountains in Index, Washington.
I was intrigued by her light brunette hair twirled in a singular, waist-length braid. Between customers, the attractive 26-year-old waitress told me she's been a volunteer on the town's fire department for four years. Three of the nine volunteers are women."Last Sunday I was rock-climbing the mountain wall," she said as she poured coffee. "That's when the fire alarm sounded."
I tried to visualize Sabrina rappelling down the wall, grabbing her bicycle and pedaling pell-mell to the firehouse. But it was even more difficult to imagine her decked out in yellow bunker gear and a red fire helmet. And I never could picture her grabbing a fire hose or climbing a ladder and cutting holes in the roof with a chain saw.
On my way out of town, I stopped by the well-kept, framed firehouse where two pumpers and a tanker were parked. I spoke with one of the volunteers, a wiry, bearded young man with dark hair and a pleasant smile. "Volunteer firefighters," he stated, "are the largest group of volunteers in the world."
I couldn't prove his statement, but I sensed his pride. "We're a small town — a small community. We all need to volunteer for something. That's why I'm a fireman."
Page 110
Doris Fell also told of Helen, an outgoing Christian widow in her early sixties, who keeps busy directing women's retreats, social activities for her church, and Bible study groups in and around her city. Helen learned about the Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program that works on behalf of abused and neglected children. Volunteers with this agency act as the child's advocate during the long court process.
That suited Helen well. She saw it as "a chance to witness... because I was free to pray and love these families." She's creative in dealing with her little changes — a romp in the park, stopping downtown for a sandwich — as she monitors visits with siblings and parents, reviews the social files, checks on school attendance, medical records, and judicial procedures.
A big part is meeting with parents of the children. Says Helen, "Although they know I may have to advocate against them, they see me as a friend — an independent person hearing their side."
Helen often recommends parenting classes to help them become adequate parents — not perfect, but adequate. Helen's court reports and recommendations, made with the best interests of the child in mind, often help the judge determine the child's permanent placement, whether back in the home or with a foster or adoptive family.
Other volunteers in Doris's article include Mildred, eighty-nine, a tall great-grandmother who daily prays for missionaries; Barbara, the founding president of a local adult day care center where Doris's mother was helped so extensively, who "leaned in close" to her elderly charges and became personally involved; Dorothy, a registered nurse retired from service in Zaire, who keeps up an extensive correspondence worldwide with workers like herself who gave their lives in selfless service; Pat, who in her retirement reads to seniors at centers in various parts of her city; Jessie, who is on call to minister in homes of alcoholics; Libby, who
Page 111
is the senior adult coordinator and director of an Alzheimer Support Group sponsored by her church.
Send Me, Lord
Russ Undlin, sixty-five, spent most of his career in international sales. He committed his life to Christ in his middle teens with no grandiose salvation experience, but remained a nominal Christian until recommitting his life in his mid-forties.
Having owned his own business for more than twenty years, he began to experience uncomfortable pressures. Life became a challenge just to stay alive, to meet the pressures of inflation and competition. The work had become repetitive, a quality which he could not tolerate. He made a decision: it was time to retire.
Not wanting inactivity, he answered a Food for the Hungry ad about voluntarism through the International Hunger Corps. Russ and his wife, Betty, drove to Scottsdale, Arizona, to investigate and later signed up. After extensive training they set out for Mozambique.
Russ was troubled by what he saw there. Starvation was not the problem so much as the people's functional disability. While traveling on business trips, he had always merely stepped over the helpless, suffering bodies, thinking, They could make it if they got up earlier and worked a little harder. But after experiences in Mozambique he realized that the world's helpless are just that — truly helpless. On a human level, in the real world, they are not going to make it, period. They will falter and die. Thanks to his volunteer experience, Russ now looks at the world's helpless, and especially the American homeless, with different eyes.
"There is a wealth of untapped talent in the retired community that must be put to use," said Russ. "The most ordinary retiree has much to offer that a developing country needs — even the most elementary knowledge that makes a society function."
Page 112
He cites the example of Mozambicans who discarded their hand scythes because they became dull. No one knew the scythes could be sharpened. "Any one of us can teach his struggling brother how to sharpen a blade, take a bath, boil polluted water, or give a baby who is dying of diarrhea replacement fluids," he said.
The most positive part of Russ's experience was "seeing futility and being able to give part of myself to relieve it, seeing people respond to my offerings and improve their lot in life. The difficult part seemed to be the age gap between myself and other workers. My years of organizing and managing were often in conflict with my younger peers. Diplomacy and special care were necessary to make it work."
At the age of sixty-four, Shig Saimo is retired and living with his wife, Doreen, in Sedona, Arizona, after enjoying his career as a landscaper. For years, he and his wife searched for God through various philosophies and religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age, and metaphysics. Not until 1975, when Shig and Doreen attended a Johnny Cash movie, did they discover Christ. Doreen responded to the altar call immediately following the movie, but Shig hesitated for another week. Finally he thought, What do I have to lose? That day he received Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
After seeing a Food for the Hungry magazine advertisement, Shig wrote for literature. The need for people with backgrounds in agriculture and community development work prompted Shig to sign up. Since he was interested in furthering the Gospel as well, the fit appeared perfect.
Shig has peace about his decision. Rather than taking life easy in a cabin in the country as he had planned, he now has a new course, a new commitment, a new beginning. He wants to go to the "uttermost parts where there is extreme poverty, where there is no electricity, flush toilets or running water like we're accustomed to." Considering the personal inconvenience, Shig says, "I realize the hardships, but they
Page 113
need the gospel and that's where we need to be — where other people don't want to be."
Unbridled enthusiasm flowed naturally from sixty-eight-year-old Roger Hamilton as he told his story of volunteerism. After retiring in June 1988 from his twenty-year career as a community college teacher, Roger and his wife, Grace, started the active retirement both had planned for.
| "People should not retire from something, but retire to something" (Margaret Collins). |
As volunteers at a missions agency in California, Roger and Grace were introduced to work around the world. Serving in Japan especially interested both Roger and Grace, so they sought God's will and signed up. Roger believes that "every Christian is either a sender or a sent one. We wanted to be sent."
Margaret Collins is a gentle, caring sixty-two-year-old lady with a beautiful southern accent. Most recently, she was the director of child nutrition programs of the Lincoln County Schools in North Carolina. She investigated the possibilities of foreign service through the Peace Corps but settled instead upon an evangelical Christian agency. Margaret is on her way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where political turmoil and war rule the environment. "I have a lot of anxiety trying to get everything done in closing up my mother's home," she says, "but I feel mostly peace. I feel that people should not retire from something, but retire to something. There are so many wonderful things in this world to see and to do and to be part of. I feel sorry for those who just sit and wait for death to come."
Stretch your limits. Find a stretching partner to encourage you in your quest. Chart your progress as you pray and
Page 114
work toward a goal. The greatest tragedy in the world is not physical neglect. It's having no one to say, "You're important." That may be the greatest gift retired people can give to others through voluntarism, the language of love.
