Puttin' on the Ritz

I woke up around 7:20 and had a sore throat. We then ate breakfast at our billets' house and Rodney was home, so we met him. He then drove us to the church and we found out that he is the Assistant Pastor at the church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church. We had a meeting with our mission team, the pastor, and Rodney at 8:30 to go over our schedule. We then had a little break before heading over to a nursing home at 10 to sing Christmas carols. During break I listened to Bec practicing her testimony in front of me, Andrea, and Kat because she had to give it at the nursing home. A bunch of us were then sitting around the nativity scene just talking and I noticed that there was a lion at the nativity scene on top of the baby Jesus! We then made a joke about it being Aslan, from Narnia.

We then got to the first nursing home, called the Ritz. It was a much more extreme version of a nursing home than I had been. Almost all of the people there had some form of dementia or mental disability associated with age. We sang Christmas carols, including Aussie jingle bells, Bec gave her testimony, and James talked about a bible verse. Bec and James kept getting disrupted by the people at the nursing home. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for them.

Aussie jingle bells lyrics

After the nursing home, we went back to the church to eat lunch. I still wasn't feeling very good, so I just drank some apple juice and ate a leftover blueberry muffin from NTE. We then discussed the first nursing home because we had another one that afternoon. It was James first time going to a nursing home at all, and the first time a few of us, myself included, have been to one that was that extreme, where all of the people had some form of mental illness.

We then went to a second nursing home called Bodington, which was Roman Catholic. This one was polar opposite and a lot more like the nursing home I have been to before. The people were coherent, just old and probably couldn't live by themselves anymore. It was more of a physical deterioration than a mental one. We sang the same songs, but this time Catherine gave her testimony and Kat talked about a bible verse.

Bodington nursing home
Photo courtesy of Jon Wan

Next, we went back to the church. Since I was sick and tired, I took a nap in the nursery area. Bec and Katie took a nap too, so I wasn't the only lazy one. :P I easily fell asleep for a few hours and actually slept well enough to dream, although I didn't remember it. Katie had to wake me up when it was time to go, and I was completely out of it. It was one of those naps that when you wake up you feel like you just rose from the dead!

We went back to Rodney and Vanessa's house after that. Sebastian had a Christmas pageant that they had to go to, so they left Bec, Nathalie, and me at their house. We went up to their side room comfortable tv room and watched Persuasion. I actually don't really remember the movie at all, except that I thought it was funny that one of the characters had the name Wentworth and we were in Wentworth Falls. Rodney and Vanessa got home before it had finished and so we took a break to eat dinner. I think they had some sort of curry, which I don't like. I just ate some white rice, and told myself that I was preparing for Survivor. haha! After dinner, I decided to skip the rest of the movie and just go to bed early because I was getting pretty sick.