God clearly commands His followers to care for widows all throughout the Old and New Testaments—but how many think of the elderly when they read those passages?
While other cultures place high value on the elderly, perhaps the same can’t be said of the U.S., where nearly 29% of the elderly live alone. Many of them report feelings of loneliness, and their health problems often go unnoticed.
We Are Family Co-Director Mark Anderson says many believers neglect the elderly community because they’re secretly scared.
“I’ll be frank—I think to some degree, we’re scared of the elderly,” he says on the “Charisma News” podcast. “There’s a certain degree of humor in my statement there, but it’s also deadly serious. We’re scared because we see ourselves in them. I am old enough to be almost a senior myself. I will be turning 60 later this month. And I’m also young enough to remember being a youth activist. There is a sense somehow that we’re immortal and that life just stretches out before us with a limitless horizon. And the reality is this life has bounds.”
That’s why Anderson is passionate about caring for the elderly. We Are Family is a social service agency that does outreach and advocacy for low-income seniors in the inner-city of Washington, D.C. They often deliver free groceries to seniors’ homes, help transport them to their daily activities, clean their homes and more.
“It’s a simple concept, but I would say a revolutionary one,” Anderson says. “Through my Christian upbringing, [I learned] this idea that we’re sisters and brothers and one family. And we have to take care of each other.”
Listen to the podcast to hear practical and spiritual ways everyday Christians can fulfill God’s command to care for the elderly.
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