There is a friendship revolution happening in dementia care across the country. Since the birth of the Respite Ministry in 2012 at a southern church in Montgomery, Alabama, their outreach to friends and neighbors living with dementia has been innovative and all welcoming. Originally a faith-born ministry, Respite's place in the community and now the world has been an open-arms embrace--a great welcoming to friends, neighbors, and strangers of any ethnicity or faith who are living with dementia of any variety. Respite is mainly staffed with volunteers. Director Daphne Johnston calls these volunteers the forerunners in dementia care the force that drives this friendship revolution. "In the Respite care environment everyone is a volunteer. Everyone needs help. Everyone is needy because he or she needs to either receive help or give help." Daphne Johnston knows that "Volunteers make a Respite community thrive in any locale. It is an adaptable model that can be tailored to your community and fit your resources and gifts. This book Reclaiming Joy Together is the current summary of what we at Respite have learned, become, and it explains our vision for the future. The model is now replicated in 17 other Respite programs with modifications for their own local neighborhood. Different names are chosen by each community, but the core values of volunteer Respite are all guided by one driving purpose: to come alongside others who need the help of neighbors and new friends." Daphne Johnston explains how this friendship revolution began: "My boss at the time and mentor Bishop Lawson Bryan asked me to create a business plan to establish a faith community at our church. He felt that people who have been worshipping and fellowshipping in their home church shouldn't have to be excluded when they developed any illness or even dementia. The vision originated with and was inspired by Lawson Bryan, and with his guidance and encouragement, I just started asking people to help. They got on board in a big way." As a result of Respite's individual story, the global narrative of dementia care began to change. "When people first hear the diagnosis of dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, they brace for what they assume will become an overwhelming tsunami--a flood of worry and work that will overtake and erode all normalcy and subsume a quality of life that can never be had again. That doesn't have to be true," Daphne asserts. "The diagnosis of dementia is like other kinds of diagnoses that something is now wrong that needs to be tended. We simply need to provide a kind of care tailored to the needs of people with memory or reasoning impairment, which vary significantly depending upon the person." About Daphne Johnston: After serving in long-term care administration for 15 years, Daphne Johnston accepted the challenge in 2012 at the First United Methodist Church to develop the Respite Ministry for families affected by Alzheimer's in the tri-county area of Montgomery, Alabama. Since then, Daphne has helped to plant the volunteer-driven model in 17 different program sites in AL, FL, and GA. Her mission is to help individuals with dementia and their family members find purpose, dignity, and opportunity to serve their community while living with new life challenges. Daphne and her husband Frank make their home in Montgomery, Alabama and have two children: Bo and Kathleen. She is an avid reader and tennis player.

Do these sound like qualities you express each day? Have you tried to get rid of them? Have you not been successful? What if you could replace them with happiness, peace, and forgiveness? What if these were qualities that could triumph in your life and finally bring you the joy you have searched for? In a world filled with unimaginable pain, suffering, and hardship, God has promised us abundant, overflowing joy, joy that is deeper than any situation we face and greater than any person we meet. Can you imagine such joy? A joy that overflows during the good times of life and a joy that carries us through the difficult valleys as well, a joy that does not depend on people or on circumstances. This is what God readily offers us. It is part of our birthright as children of God. But are we willing to claim it? Join author Lorraine Hill as she guides you through an eight-week daily Bible study to find joy for your life. Follow along asReclaiming Your Joyteaches you about your God-given privilege to find everlasting joy through him. This inspirational study will encourage and guide you to find solutions that will allow you to reclaim your joy: how to be obedient, how to overcome worry, how to promote peaceful relationships, and so much more. Prepare for the most important growth in your life, the growth from achieving eternal joy!

Are you involved in a quarrelsome or contentious relationship that is keeping you stressed and on guard? Are you holding on to some bitterness rooted in the past? Does the constant barrage of online bickering make you anxious and angry? Do you feel stuck in a place that is stealing your joy? If you have ever been challenged by any of these issues, then you are in the right place. This study of Genesis 26 will help you explore where you might be stuck. It will ask you to address some common attitudes, habits, and behaviors that are preventing you from living the life of joy God desires for you. Take this prayerful journey of introspection with the Holy Spirit and learn to embrace forgiveness, gain freedom from a painful past, and find healing from the things that are keeping you out of the wide-open space of joyful living.

Nearly a million women are widowed each year in the United States. Hardly anyone is prepared for the days, months, and years that follow the loss. New widows grieve, but they also battle psychological, spiritual, and social upheaval from all directions. From discovering a new identity to finding different ways to relate to old friends, life becomes unfamiliar. Practical changes--both legal and financial--are inevitable. Just as there's no simple prescription that makes grief disappear, there is no clear way to address all the challenges widows face. In Reclaiming Joy: A Primer for Widows, Ella Wall Prichard writes the book she needed, but could not find, after her husband died. She recounts her turn to the Apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians, a letter that features joy as a source of comfort and hope--and that shapes Reclaiming Joy. Prichard offers practical advice on how to achieve joy. Each chapter focuses on a different trait needed to move from grief to joy. The primary narrative arc is spiritual, even though stories of struggle, conflict, and loss are recurrent themes. Reclaiming Joy is part memoir, part guide, part inspiration. It captures the pain felt in the first years of widowhood in the move from grief to joy. It offers encouragement and advice to women who seek the strength to rebuild their lives and reclaim their joy.

Reclaim Joy is a beautiful guided journal that shows you how we can embrace the joy in simple, free, and natural things; every day of the year!

Candid selection of stories which illuminate and captures the vital energy and joy of being a nurse. Encourages disillusioned nurses and those entering the profession to recognize and create "Camelot Nursing" environments wherever they provide care to patients.

Reclaiming Our Food tells the stories of people across the United States who are finding new ways to grow, process, and distribute food for their own communities. Discover how abandoned urban lots have been turned into productive organic farms, how a family-run sustainable fish farm can stay local and be profitable, and how engaged communities are bringing fresh produce into school cafeterias. Through photographic essays and interviews with innovative food leaders, you’ll be inspired to get involved and help cultivate your own local food economy.