Navigating the 21st century

I was utterly dismayed entering Grandma's house. It was clear that she should not be living alone, yet she adamantly refused to leave with us. For now, I knew at least for the short term, I must make her home safe. To her consternation, I rolled up and hid all the throw rugs and then I told her I would refuse to go home unless she let me get her a cell phone which she would wear in a pouch from a necklace around her neck.

Asherel and I went shopping for old people phones- small and easy to operate. We fortuitously found a salesman who had forced his grandpa recently to get a cell phone.
"Now he is the envy of all the old geezers," assured the kind young man, "and I have peace of mind that in an emergency, he can call someone."

He patiently helped us select
The best phone and cheapest prepaid minutes plan. We headed back to stubborn Grandma, determined to teach her to use the phone- first with speed dialing to 911, but then with the ease of reclining on the couch and chatting with loved ones.

Until you have taught an old person who has lived close to a century how to operate a device like a cell phone, you have no right to call yourself a teacher. I think it should be required of every education major that he go to a nursing home, and teach a senior citizen how to call a friend and take a photo with a cell phone.

I never knew how advanced a task it was to just open a cell phone. We finally mastered that procedure and moved on to speed dialing.
"You have to press and hold 2," I instructed,"That's it. Then it automatically dials 911."

Grandma will need to cut her beautiful long nails but she understood the task. We practiced by having her call my number, also programmed into speed dialing.

I stood across the living room, my phone in hand.
" Ok, call me. Remember, just press and hold number four."
My phone rang and I answered, giving Grandma a thumbs up across the living room.
"Hello!" I said, waving, "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," she said.
I walked to the next room, talking in my phone, " Can you still hear me, Dr. Watson?"
"No!" she yelled.
"I mean in your phone," I added, knowing she meant she could
no longer hear me in the same room.
"Oh....yes."
Victory!
She sent us to dinner, begging us to let her stay and rest. So I put her dinner at her table aside the recliner and put her phone necklace on her.
"We'll call from the restaurant so you can practice answering," I told her.

So I called...twice....and she didn't answer. Waiting a few minutes, I tried again. This time, she answered.
"Did you try to call earlier?" she asked, "I heard music and I didn't know where it was coming from. Then finally I realized it must be my phone!"

I went to bed early, worn out from making the complicated simple. But Grandma sat happily with her son, watching baseball, with the pretty light blue phone pouch safely hanging on the necklace.

Isaiah 50:2 (NIV)
When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was my arm too short to ransom you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.

Isaiah 50:4 (NIV)
The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.

Isaiah 52:7 (NIV)
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

- Nothing is impossible with God
- hollowcreekfarm.org