wfn.org | SOOPer experience

[BethAH@mbm.org]

December 20, 2000
Beth Hawn
Communications Coordinator
Mennonite Board of Missions
phone (219) 294-7523
fax (219) 294-8669
<www.MBM.org>

December 20, 2000

SOOP serves up worthwhile experience, broader horizons

ELKHART, Ind. (MBM/GCMC) – While many college students will admit
to using coffee and Mountain Dew to stay alert and productive, a
growing number of older adults are using soup.

Well, SOOP, actually, as in Service Opportunities for Older
People.  A program of Mennonite Board of Missions, Mennonite
Association of Retired Persons, and Mennonite Central Committee
Canada, SOOP provides anyone over 50 an opportunity to combine
service and travel.  SOOPers share their talents and experience
while visiting one of the many SOOP locations in the United
States or Canada.  SOOP expects volunteers to cover their own
expenses, including travel, health insurance and medical costs,
and occasionally food and lodging.

SOOP’s menu of volunteers includes carpenters and listeners,
poets and cooks, gardeners and electricians.

Helen Isaak of Waterloo, Ontario, a retired home care
administrator, has volunteered with SOOP in Anchorage, Alaska;
San Antonio; and Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Last February, she spent a
month at New Hope House in Griffin, Ga., assisting the families
of defendants being tried for capital crimes.

 “I had seen the movie Dead Man Walking, and had also heard Helen
Prejean [the nun whose story is told in the movie] talk about her
experiences,” said Isaak.  “I thought this would be a challenging
and worthwhile experience.”

New Hope House maintains a guesthouse for those visiting
death-row inmates.  Staff members often travel around the state,
accompanying families of defendants through death penalty
trials.  When relationships are built during the trial process,
families feel more comfortable staying at New Hope House later
when they visit their relatives on death row.

“The highlight of the month was attending court,” Isaak said.
“Since I had never been to court, I looked forward every day to
finding out what would happen next.  It was a very powerful
experience to sit on the defendant’s side and imagine how the
defendant and family feel when something like this happens.  In
both situations [I observed], it was not premeditated murder; it
happened when they were inebriated and on drugs.”

New Hope House volunteers watched as one 20-year-old defendant
faced the widow and mother of the man and children he shot and
killed.  “I know nothing can bring back your family,” he said,
“but I pray every morning when I wake up that it hadn’t
happened.”

In both trials that Isaak attended, the jury returned a guilty
verdict, sentencing the defendants to death.

“Both men seemed to have experienced so much tragedy in their
[lives], and now they were told by everyone except family that
they had completely failed,” Isaak said.  “Across the street from
one of the courthouses, there was a sign in a church yard that
read ‘Love is the Way.’  Yet, many churches in the South support
the death penalty.  I felt that New Hope House was trying to tell
people at the court, by their presence, that love truly is the
way.”

The time out of court was a little less intense.

Isaak, two other volunteers, and staff members Ed and Mary Ruth
Weir shared a duplex on the New Hope House property.  “I enjoyed
the social times we had together – especially in the evening
playing ‘chicken feet’ (a domino game),” she said.  “It helped us
to relax and brought us together.”

Many older adults enjoy the many SOOP varieties available and
keep coming back for more.  Maynard and Bernice Rufenacht of
Archbold, Ohio, have spent a dozen winters volunteering with a
home repair agency in Tucson, Ariz.  Others, like Isaak, want to
sample different areas of the country.

“It’s a vacation with a plus,” Isaak said.  “It broadens our
horizons and gives us an opportunity to experience firsthand what
we couldn’t do during our employment years.  Volunteers can work
at their own pace, and in my experience, volunteers with SOOP
have been appreciated because of the experience and wisdom they
bring to the job.”

What kind of aftertaste does this SOOP leave?

Isaak’s time at New Hope House showed her just how uninformed she
was about the court systems in both Canada and the United
States.  The experience prompted her to sign up for a course on
the Canadian justice system at the University of Waterloo.  (The
class was later canceled.)

“[Being at New Hope House] was a very hard experience, but a very
powerful one,” Isaak said.  “It really changed me.  Somehow, it
was the core of what Christianity is all about – loving and
forgiveness.”

* * *

Elizabeth Beachy for MBM news