“This is the moment.”
By Lily Mundschau
On the itinerary, it said “wellness park.” I could only imagine what it was going to be like — an outside area, full of grass, park benches and maybe even a pond or two lined with walking paths.
I continued down the itinerary, and it read “activity with elderly.” I could now see smiling, gray haired people in this park. Okay, yeah, I could get on board with that.
I should have known better than what to expect. This day was just one more example of how Taiwan had continued to stretch my mind. It turned out that this “wellness park” was actually a nursing home.
You are probably asking why in the world would a nursing home be called a “wellness park”? Chrissy Wang, Executive Director of Ren Shin Wellness Park, did this intentionally because she wanted to create a joyful and functional space for the elderly — a space that doesn’t isolate the residents from the community and a space that allows them to receive quality care.
Her passion for the elderly has made her go to great lengths to completely redesign how nursing homes should be. All the tables, sinks and other furniture are wheelchair accessible and easy to maneuver around, and they have bright colors of orange, green, purple and blue. Their bedrooms have been made to look and feel like a real home, not a hospital room. Chrissy and her team have even created activities such as wheelchair accessible gardening and CrossFit classes for the elderly, which is the first in Taiwan. These are just a few examples!
To connect the elderly to the community, she has been inviting community groups to hold activities in this park — the most recent being a group of 22 college students from a small Christian university 7000 miles away in St. Paul, Minnesota, the United States. We sang and danced to bring joy to the residents at the park. I never expected that this experience of singing and dancing would confirm so many of my questions.
As we danced, I mingled into the crowd and took the hands of a few of the residents. I continued down the line and locked eyes with one sweet resident in wheelchair. I ran over, knelt beside her and held her hands. With the beat of the music, we danced. In this very moment, she began to cry tears of joy, and so did I.
Instantly I knew that this was something I was going to remember for the rest of my life as I heard God speak to me, “This is the moment.” I realized that this exchange of smiles and tears was the reason I was on this trip.I always knew that I wanted to work with the elderly as a nurse, and this moment of sharing love with this resident confirmed my decision.
Even though we, the students, do not share the same culture or speak the same language with the residents, we can bond through a smile, a dance move or a kind face. Thank you, Ren Shin Wellness Park, for placing a new joy in my heart — a joy being reminded again and again that each one of us is God’s beloved child.
