There should be a book about Muriel Kuhn’s life. That much is certain. But things become blurry when you try to imagine the movie they’d make after the book became a bestseller.
Hers is a story of unwavering faith, unconditional love and unending hope.
But Hollywood types looking to make big bucks won’t always let facts get in the way of a good story.
So, maybe they would try to play up the human suffering angle and focus on what ordinary people might see as a tale riddled with tragedy.
Diagnosed with malignant melanoma at age 21. One surgery to remove half an eyebrow, half an eyelid and all the tissue down to her skull in the cancerous area. One major reconstructive surgery and six follow-up procedures. Twenty-two years of checkups at least twice each year to make sure the cancer hadn’t returned. Then, on the cusp of retirement, Parkinson’s disease …
There’s a problem with the suffering angle, though.
The main character isn’t ordinary.
She won’t have any part of it.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
A publication of First United Methodist Church
72 Lakeland Morton Drive Lakeland, FL 33803
Church office
863-686-3163 firstumc.org
First Things First
Rev. Charley Reeb
Senior Pastor
PASTORS
Charley Reeb
Senior Pastor
Andy Whitaker-Smith
Associate Pastor
Kim DuBreuil
Associate Pastor
HAVE AN IDEA FOR A STORY?
Contact Forrest White at fwhite@firstumc.org
The Rev. Dr. Charley Reeb began a three-month renewal leave on Sept 1.
The United Methodist Book of Discipline provides for a clergy person who has served at least six years in a full-time relationship to request a formational and spiritual growth leave of up to six months while continuing to hold an appointment.
Charley’s three-month request – as required by the Book of Discipline –was approved by First UMC’s Staff Parish Relations Committee, the church’s executive committee of church council and District Superintendent Rev. Emily Hotho.
He will return to First UMC on Dec. 1 and his greeting will return to First Connections in the December edition.
From the Editor
Forrest White Director of Mission Ministries
Are You Really OK?
In September 2013, we lost Drue Noble to suicide. He was 28. He had fought depression for longer than the 15 years I knew him. So, I feared the worst when I saw a Facebook post from his brother that September. He asked if anyone had seen Drue over the past day. When his sister Holly called me a day later, somehow, I already knew.
The family asked me to speak at his funeral. This is how I began Drue’s eulogy:
“In my early days as youth pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church, I opened my home on Monday nights to a group of middle school guys, including Drue, who loved to watch professional wrestling. For his birthday one year, Drue asked for tickets to see the WWF event coming to the Richmond Coliseum. His dad obliged with two tickets and Drue asked me to take him.
We went and had a blast as we watched the spectacle that is pro wrestling. I remember the main event featured Stone Cold Steve Austin, who got hit with a battery thrown by a fan – NOT me or Drue – on his way to the ring.
The unspoken truth about pro wrestling is this … It’s fake. You have to be
careful to use that F word because you never know when there’s a fan around who thinks it’s real and has a battery or two in his pocket.
Drue, the other middle school guys, and I knew it wasn’t real, but we enjoyed the weekly ritual of just spending time together and laughing together as friends.
There was nothing fake about the demon of depression Drue wrestled with most of his life. None of us here will ever know what he endured.
When you’re overwhelmed by depression I think it must be like what sailors feel when they’re far out to sea, surrounded by a perfect storm, with no sign of stars breaking through the clouds. You know the stars are there. They must be there, behind the clouds. But the storm is raging all around you and you can’t see them. No matter where you look, you can’t see them and you can’t imagine you will ever see them again …
When your mind hurts and you’re holding hope by its last thread after weeks of fighting, of looking for stars on the other side of the clouds, those problems don’t seem temporary. They seem like they’re going to last forever.
Drue’s body died last Saturday. Moving forward from this place, it is his life I will remember … His kind heart, his sense of humor, his love for others ...”
I thought of Drue often in the months after his death.
Sometime around Thanksgiving each year, he would call or text me to see if there were any video games Austin or Kerrigan wanted for Christmas. He was managing a Game Stop and could get me a good deal.
The last communication I ever had with that young man came in a series of text messages on his birthday, just a few weeks before his death.
He had started a new job, with the promise of big paydays to come.
Drue told me in his last text, “I’m going to get you that house on the beach in a few years.”
Even now, it brings me to tears. That was Drue. And that was his way of telling me he loved me.
After his death, I did what those left behind after a suicide
always do … I wished I had seen a sign, wished he had reached out.
I wished I had made sure he got the help he needed to finally put the depression behind him.
In preparing for this edition of First Connections, God put Drue on my heart for the first time in a long time. I don’t believe it was a coincidence.
September is National Suicide Prevention month.
If you are struggling with depression, know this …
It doesn’t mean you are weak. It doesn’t mean you just need more faith.
It simply means you are human.
Hope is real. Help is real. I long for the day when people will seek mental health care as they would seek physical care. When we have strep throat, we go to the doctor. We don’t try to will it away.
In this and every season, let’s be the kind of people who check on each other. Are you OK? I mean are you really OK?
The last time I had lunch with Drue Noble he pulled out his cellphone to show me the screen. It was an ultrasound image. Holly was expecting. Her little girl is 10 now.
One thing I know for sure, Drue would have been a great uncle.
All the best,
We can all help prevent suicide. The 988 Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, as well as prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones.
“I don’t like it when someone makes it sound like I’ve suffered or if they say that I’m suffering with Parkinson’s,” she said defiantly, during a long summer chat.
“I am not.”
There’s a love story inexorably interwoven through her life story. She and husband Bob have co-authored it across 53 years of marriage. She was 19 and he was 23 when they exchanged vows. Unable to have biological children because of the cancer, they adopted, first a girl then a boy.
When Muriel faced a life-changing surgery earlier this year, she and Bob quarantined together for five months, emerging even stronger in their faith and in a relationship where it was already impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
“The culture my parents instilled in our family is a culture of love, trust and strength, not of blame or self-pity,” son Brian said.
His sister, Laura, too, has had a front-row seat to what true love and devotion look like.
“Dad’s willingness to take care of Mom goes beyond the expectations of modern marriage vows,” she said. “Since her cancer diagnosis at the beginning of their marriage, Dad has devoted his life to making sure Mom is met with the best in doctor care, the best in how they live, and the best in how they raised their family. They made decisions together. They never fought. Any disagreements were solved with compromise and a kiss goodnight.”
But where would such a love-themed movie air? Genuine love stories like theirs don’t belong on The Hallmark Channel.
“I cannot fathom what they have endured. To be faced with such obstacles throughout their marriage and to overcome them is a testament to their faith in each other and in Christ,” Brian said.
Ah, yes, faith.
A script wouldn’t be accurate if not centered on Muriel’s deep, abiding faith.
“Her whole lifestyle, her whole way of being, of living is due to her faith,” close friend Debbie Hatch said. “It is and always has been her everyday way of life. No matter the situation she shines with the light of Christ. They both do.
L - Muriel's children Brian and Laura
R - After her first NYC marathon
She stood at the sink alone doing dishes on that night. Bob was in another room, shuffling cards for the nightly games of Hand and Foot.
Nearly seven months had passed since a visit with her neurologist changed everything. She was nearly maxed out on the medication she took for Parkinson’s. You can’t take more than 10 doses a day. She was at 8.5. And it wasn’t working so well anymore.
“There was a lot of dipping down and coming back up,” Muriel said of how the medication worked. “It’s like I was 20 years old during on times (when the medicine was working) and then 90 years old every three hours until the medicine picked back up.”
The Kuhns had researched Deep brain stimulation (DBS), a surgical procedure used to address debilitating movement symptoms of Parkinson’s.
“I don’t like it when someone makes it sound like I’ve suffered...”
“In simple things, in ordinary things, in the hardest moments of life, Muriel and Bob are confident of God’s care for them and thus they extend that love and care to all. It’s just what they do. Like it’s easy. Like it is just the natural thing to do.”
Whatever the movie theme, wherever it might air, it could only open with one scene.
The night of May 8, 2024.
The night of Muriel Kuhn’s “Holy Spirit moment.”
With DBS, electrodes are inserted into targeted areas of the brain, one side at a time in two separate surgeries. A pulse generator –similar to a heart pacemaker – is placed under the collarbone during a third procedure to deliver electrical stimulation to areas in the brain that control movement. It is designed to work in tandem with medications, making lower doses effective again with reduced side effects.
“We always said, ‘We’re not doing that,” Muriel said.
But that changed during the October 2023 appointment when she brought up the medication issues to her neurologist at the University of Florida’s Shands Hospital.
“He said, ‘You need to do DBS. You’d be an excellent candidate,’” she said.
Muriel Kuhn
R - Practicing short bike rides before Bob and Muriel head to the Bartow Trail and the Van Fleet Trail. She had not ridden in more than four years!
“He comfortably talked to us so well. I know God gave him the words Bob and I needed to hear. The timing was so perfect. I said, ‘Sign me up!’ We went in thinking we would never do DBS and left excited about getting a meeting with the review committee.”
In mid-January, the committee approved her for DBS, which helps with some of the worst Parkinson’s symptoms such as tremors, stiffness/rigidity and dyskinesia (involuntary movement of a body part or the entire body you can’t control). She and Bob began quarantining soon thereafter with her surgeries scheduled for March 28, May 1 and May 31.
“Neither wanted to risk any delay or complication in the surgery schedule,” daughter Laura said. “So they played card games, watched movies, gardened, swam, exercised, cooked, cleaned and spent the holidays together, never once going bananas with cabin fever during their quarantine, proving their bond is unshakeable.”
The dyskinesia – which is brought on by medication –was the most frustrating part of Parkinson’s for Muriel.
“It was like having hiccups all the time,” she said. “Even when I slept, I never stopped moving.”
Once during her morning power walk, it caused her to send her cell phone flying across a road, breaking upon impact. During a visit last Christmas to see Brian and his family, she asked her daughter-in-law to serve her grape juice in a plastic cup just in case the dyskinesia struck.
“She said, ‘No mom, you will have the crystal like everyone
- Finally driving again!
R - The rigidity and stiffness did not stop her from playing the piano, but altered her ability in playing. Now it's back to smooth, easy tones.
else. If something happens it happens,’” Muriel said. “Lo and behold in the middle of dinner, I’m taking a sip and all of a sudden the glass goes flying out of my hands and smashes against the wall.”
She had undergone the second of the DBS brain surgeries a week before her “Holy Spirit moment.” There had been some side effects. Blood pressure spikes. Headaches. Dizziness.
Bob: “She was anxious. ‘Are we ever going to get through this? Are we going to be better off?’”
L
Fine Arts
MAGIC OF BRONZE HANDBELL CONCERT: SEASON OF WONDER
Sunday, November 24 at 5pm – Sanctuary
No ticket required
Kick off the holidays by ringing in the sounds of the season with this talented group of handbell ringers. Through their handbell artistry, the Magic of Bronze will help us discover what it truly means to wonder, and have wonder, during this special time of the year.
HANDBELL MUSICIANS OF AMERICA COLLEGE RING-IN CONCERT
Sunday, January 5 at 3pm - Sanctuary
No ticket required
Come see and hear what advanced handbell musicians ages 18-29 can accomplish, from pop tunes to classical and original works. These talented ringers from around the country will meet for the first time on Friday, January 3rd, and work together for three days, preparing to present a magnificent concert on Sunday, January 5th.
JAZZ ROOM
Friday, January 31 from 7pm to 9pm –Fellowship Center
Tickets: $15/person
Back by popular demand! Looking for something unique this winter? Enjoy a relaxed evening of Jazz favorites, as The Jeff Phillips Trio returns again this year to whisk us away from the worries of today, and into a New York City style Jazz Room, created by our contemporary worship team in the Fellowship Center. Ticket price includes an evening of exceptional music, table snacks and one drink from the craft mocktail and soda bar.
THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF CHRISTMAS
Sunday, December 8 at 4pm and 7pm – Sanctuary
No ticket required
Celebrate the holidays with the choirs, handbells, praise team and the Sights and Sounds Orchestra as we experience Images of the Season. A wonderful way for you and your friends & family to ring in the season, and a Lakeland tradition for nearly 50 years. Childcare is available for children ages six weeks through pre-K for the 4pm concert.
FINE ARTS SUNDAY
Sunday, January 26 at all services
No ticket required
Join us as we celebrate Fine Arts Sunday in the 8:15, 9:30, and 11:00 traditional worship services. Through the creativity of music, dance, and visual art, we will glorify God and celebrate the artistic talents of all who contribute to our fine arts ministries.
MYSTERY AT SHADY ACRES:
DINNER THEATRE AND SILENT AUCTION
Written by Michelle R. Davis
Produced by special arrangement with Pioneer Drama Service
Presented by the Handbell Ringers & Singers
Friday, February 21 at 6:30pm & Saturday, February 22 at 12pm - Fellowship Center
Tickets: $30/person
A prestigious guest’s valuable diamond necklace has been stolen at a remote English countryside hotel and nearly everyone is a suspect! Join us for this hilarious, lighthearted “whodunit” and help solve the case! Our Friday evening dinner experience and Saturday matinee lunch experience will be identical with a silent auction being offered during both performances. A special children’s event for kids 3rd grade and younger will be offered during our Friday night performance with a separate registration so parents can make it a date night if they choose.
HANDBELL RINGERS & SINGERS:
CELEBRATE THE SEASONS
Sunday, May 18 at 4pm - Sanctuary
No ticket required
Singing and ringing simultaneously, this talented group will present a unique program of music describing and celebrating the four seasons. The Ringers and Singers perform on two sets of Whitechapel handbells along with ChoirChime instruments that blend wonderfully with their singing.
THE WIZARD OF OZ: YOUTH EDITION
By L. Frank Baum
With Music and Lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg
Background Music by Herbert Stothart
Presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Tams-Witmark LLC
Saturday, March 29 at 4pm - Fellowship Center
Tickets: $10/adult, $5/child
Join us for a special one-hour adaptation of “The Wizard of Oz” presented by our own children and youth. These talented kids will take us on the unforgettable journey of Dorothy and all the friends she encounters along the way as they “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” through the Land of Oz. Their journey to happiness – and self-awareness – is a glowing testament to friendship, understanding and hope in a world filled with both beauty and ugliness.
Help support our 2024-2025 Fine Arts Series by becoming a Patron!
PATRONS DONATING $100 OR MORE WILL RECEIVE RESERVED SEATING FOR CONCERTS TAKING PLACE IN THE SANCTUARY AND YOUR NAME WILL APPEAR IN THE PATRON SECTION OF ALL CONCERT PROGRAMS.
Three ways to donate:
• Scan the QR code
• Give online at firstumc.org/concert-series
• Send your check payable to First UMC and marked “Fine Arts Series” directly to:
First UMC Fine Arts Department 72 Lake Morton Dr. Lakeland, FL 33801
TO PURCHASE TICKETS TO CONCERTS, PLEASE VISIT FIRSTUMC.ORG/CONCERT-SERIES
The smaller device is the one selected for Muriel. It is the device to which the electrode lead wires are connected. The battery is rechargeable for 16 years.
Muriel: “I felt crappy, somewhat frustrated, discouraged, tired, a bit scared. At the sink, all of a sudden my whole body got warm and relaxed. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, what is this?’”
She immediately went to Bob. She didn’t have to say a word. He could see it. “What the heck happened to you?” he said.
Bob: “When this came over her, it was like a gift from God. ‘Relax. Calm down. I’ve got this. It’s going to be OK.’ She was completely at ease. There wasn’t a muscle twitching or tense. I was amazed. I hadn’t seen her that calm in a long time.”
Muriel: “God knew I needed it. He didn’t just have me feel better. He came into the kitchen. The Holy Spirit washed over me with a message, ‘The best is yet to come! Continue to be patient. It’s just a matter of time now.’ My issues returned shortly after. But that was probably one of the greatest five minutes with God that I’ve ever had. I am truly grateful God gave me a glimpse into the future.”
She remembers her “feet getting caught up on each other” in a Zumba class and being unable to repetitively ring a bell in choir.
Muriel is both an athlete – she was a distance runner who completed four New York City marathons – and a musician –she plays violin and piano.
So what happened at exercise and in the choir were a bit unnerving.
Life went on for about a year after the early symptoms as retirement began. She was still running, still playing doubles tennis with Bob. The symptoms reemerged every now and then. Her doctor suggested physical therapy, which she did for about a year. It didn’t help. Soon she was at a local neurologist undergoing tests for everything from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to multiple sclerosis to brain tumors to Parkinson’s.
“God knew I needed it. He didn’t just have me feel better. He came into the kitchen. ”
DBS patients sometimes have a “honeymoon phase” after the electrodes surgeries, when symptoms disappear for a time. The Kuhns shared what happened that night in the kitchen with doctors and nurses. None had ever heard of such an experience, she said.
“I was told in the beginning by the surgeon that the dyskinesia would be gone and it is,” Muriel said, in late August. “If that’s the only thing that was gone, that would be a gift from God. Stiffness and rigidity are pretty much gone, too. Tremors are lessened. The (doctors) are working on (adjustments). I have faith it will happen. But if I were to end up like I am now and they couldn’t do anything else, it’s a gift.”
On April 4, 2014, while back at Shands in Gainesville, where she went to beat melanoma, she received the Parkinson’s diagnosis. For the first few years, three pills a day kept her free of most symptoms other than leg tremors. But rigidity, stiffness and dystonia (involuntary and at times painful contraction of a muscle) would eventually set in, requiring more medication, which led to the dyskinesia over the last three years.
“Now, with the DBS, it seems like she may be able to pick up some of the old hobbies and activities,” Laura said. “Mom is a positive thinker. An optimist with a deep belief system in the power of prayer, the love for God, and a self-sacrificing, selfless devotion to her family and friends. She will drop everything to help a friend in need.”
The first hints of Parkinson’s began to emerge during the 2010-2011 school year, which was the year she had planned to retire as a teacher. (Both she and Bob had stellar careers as educators. They moved to Palatka in 1973 from New York, then to Lakeland in 2015.)
In August, Muriel rode a bicycle again for the first time in four years. Playing piano is much easier without the rigidity and stiffness. She no longer has to think her way through everyday things like wiping the kitchen counter, running the vacuum and raking the yard. Tying her shoes used to take five minutes. Now it’s simple again.
Muriel Kuhn
"Our grandchildren mean the world to us. I absolutely want to stay as energetic and agile as possible to enjoy many years with them running around on my own two feet rather than from a chair."
She doesn’t like talking about herself. She would rather talk about the countless people who have prayed for her and sent her encouraging messages, many of which came from her First UMC family. The Kuhns broke their quarantine by coming to worship again in June, after months of worshiping online. Then, they went out for ice cream.
“Everyone has something they have to deal with. Someone would call it a battle, others may refer to it as suffering through a horrible ordeal,” Muriel said. “Mine happened to be medical. You get the diagnosis and then what? I truly believe attitude and reaction are the key to working through the situation or learning to live with it and still having a high quality of joy in your life. I cannot change the fact that I have Parkinson’s disease. However, I can choose how I deal with it.”
Her choice? Psalm 16:8.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
“I am human. Do I worry about my condition at times? Feel sad? Wonder about my future? I absolutely
“I won’t be shaken!”
So, how might the Muriel Kuhn movie end?
do have these feelings and emotions,” she said. “However, I choose to pass them over to God and not hold onto them. The more I pass over to God and make my two feet move forward, always keeping that verse on my lips and in my heart, the more proactively I become the best I can be. I focus on God.”
She smiles.
Only God knows for certain. And the Kuhns are just fine with that.
Come what may, they know they’ll be loving each other through it all and that God will be loving them. That’s enough. More than enough, they say.
It always has been.
Neither cancer nor Parkinson’s was going to ruin their happily ever after.
“My mother doesn’t have an ounce of self-pity or question God, ‘Why me?’” Brian said. “She could have accepted that this mountain was too big to climb. Instead, she defied it and fought it with her best friend. They have endure this struggle like every one before it, together, fighting hand in hand.”
Bob and Muriel back home after surgery #3! A celebration of surgeries completed and Bob’s birthday
Memory Café offers dignity, fun to families facing dementia
As soon as you get off the elevator inside First UMC’s “C” Building, you can hear the laughter. Lots of it. And sounds of people playing.
But these sounds aren’t coming from the preschool area on the ground floor.
They’re echoing through the top floor, coming out of the Memory Café, a weekly gathering for people living with cognitive disorders and their care partner (almost always a family member).
“For an hour and half every Monday morning, they forget they have dementia,” says Vicky Pitner, a certified dementia practitioner and therapeutic recreation specialist who coordinates the church’s memory ministry.
On any given Monday at the Café you may find participants and volunteers making music in a drum circle or dancing to Oldies.
Pitner might have them kicking a stuffed ball or swatting a beach ball around the circle, encouraging them to use their right and left sides, hands and feet.
There are stories to read, poems to write and songs to sing.
And there are toasts to make – with water to emphasize the importance of hydration – to others gathered around the tables and to life.
Every activity happens for a reason, always wrapped in love and care.
It’s all driven by Pitner who could give the Energizer Bunny a run for its money.
“I cannot say enough wonderful things about Vicky,” said Lucy Heath, longtime volunteer with the Café. “She gives of herself selflessly, 100 percent at all times.”
“Alzheimer’s changes everything.”
Memory Cafés were introduced in 1997 in the Netherlands as a way to break stigmas associated with forms of dementia and to include family members in community.
When asked for key elements of First UMC’s ministry, Pitner offered these insights:
• We promote dignity. Dementia does not take away the person’s dignity, people do. So we honor and respect differences and all abilities. We avoid correcting any mistakes. People with memory loss can be embarrassed and feel shame so quickly when they do not remember something. We take the word “remember” out of our vocabularies and encourage the families to use phrases such as “I recall when we went to …” Or “I was thinking about …” to start reminiscing and have meaningful conversations.
• We use a strengths-based, family-centered approach, helping families focus on what their family member can do, not what they can no longer do.
• Isolation creeps in when someone gets a dementia diagnosis. The Café addresses the social, spiritual, cognitive, expressive and physical needs of the person living with memory loss and, as importantly, the needs of family members and friends who support them.
The Memory Café
First UMC members Ann and Keith Hilliard have been coming to the Café for more than a year. Keith was diagnosed seven years ago with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). For some the MCI may never get worse, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“Sadly his progressed,” said Ann, who became emotional when talking about what the Café means to both of them.
“For him, it’s an hour and a half he can share with friends and acquaintances where he doesn’t really have Alzheimer’s. He’s just like everybody else.”
She paused to gather herself.
“I just love seeing a place where he’s happy. It’s one of the few social things we can still do together. Alzheimer’s changes everything.”
A Loving Ministry
The Memory Café at First UMC has its roots in 2013 when the church embarked on a significant building campaign under the leadership of the
Every activity happens for a reason, always wrapped in love and care.
Rev. David McEntire, who is quick to credit the Rev. June Edwards, associate pastor at the time, for championing outreach in conjunction with the brick and mortar plans.
“Many of the conversations led to the realization that there was nothing
significant for the increasing number of families who had a loved one facing a dementia diagnosis,” McEntire said.
In researching potential ministry options, he came across The Brain Fitness Club at First UMC Winter Park. In 2018, the First UMC Lakeland launched its own Brain Fitness Club, tapping Pitner to lead it.
The curriculum supplied by the creators of the Brain Fitness Club was lacking in experiential aspects Pitner deemed vital, and it did not encourage ministry to family members/caregivers.
Eventually, First UMC discontinued the Brain Fitness Club, opting to have Pitner use her expertise and passion to shape something unique. Pitner kept things going over Zoom during the pandemic before launching the Memory Café in August 2021.
McEntire had known all along the church had something special in Pitner, who in 2024 published a book – The Love Approach to Living with Dementia. Its subtitle reads, Engaging in Life with Family and Friends!
He calls her “the key and energy” behind what has become “a wonderful, loving and encouraging ministry.”
Pitner began working at a nursing home after her time at the University of Tennessee. It was her first full-time job.
“Back then the treatment for dementia was reality therapy,” she said. “Every time you’d walk into the room you’d try to orient them. You may tell them it was June 1 and they would say, ‘No, it’s my birthday and my birthday is in March.’ You would correct them and say, ‘No it’s June.’
“That made it worse. It made them argue. It didn’t make any sense. And it wasn’t working. That’s all we knew. So as a young punk coming right out of school I knew it wasn’t working, but I didn’t know what to do about it.”
She stayed less than a year in that job.
“Isolation will cause cognitive decline faster than anything.”
Shaped by a Legend
Pitner had played basketball at Tennessee as a freshman under a 22-year-old coach named Pat Head. The world would come to know her in time by her married name, Pat Summitt. A coaching legend, she won nearly 1100 games and eight national championships as women’s basketball coach at Tennessee.
In August 2011 Summitt announced she had early-onset Alzheimer’s, which has a life expectancy of one to five years. She would coach the 2011-2012 season before retiring. Summitt died in June 2016 at age 64.
Pitner sought training as a certified dementia practitioner to better understand her coach’s disease and felt called to
Vicky Pitner Memory Ministry Coordinator
shift her career to focus on making life better for those with dementia and their family members.
“She made a difference in my life,” Pitner said of Summitt. “What an impact she had on people.”
Don’t Hesitate to Get Involved
Ask anyone associated with the Memory Café and they’re likely to say the same about Pitner. They’ll also tell you this … If you have a loved one facing cognitive issues, don’t hesitate to get involved.
“Isolation will cause cognitive decline faster than anything,” Pitner said.
Ann Hilliard wishes she and Keith had started coming sooner.
“I think the biggest stumbling block is you don’t know when your partner, the person you care for, is ready,” Ann said. “I was more hesitant than Keith. When we started coming and I realized he enjoyed it, how little stigma he attached to being here, I found we could have come sooner.”
Church office
863-686-3163
firstumc.org
WORSHIP SERVICES
8:15 am SANCTUARY
The best of traditional worship is presented with a fresh approach to time-honored hymns with a variety of music.
9:30
FELLOWSHIP CENTER
A contemporary, relaxed atmosphere with the worship music of today.
ASL interpreter in person.
11:00 SANCTUARY
Traditional hymns with organ accompaniment are featured along with various fine arts music groups.
11:00
FELLOWSHIP CENTER
The Current is a unique, contemporary worship experience. Communion is offered each Sunday.
Just a few ...
OF THE CONTINUING WAYS TO SERVE AT FIRST UMC:
Philip O’Brien Elementary - student mentoring and teacher support August through May
Dream Center - Neighborhood outreach
Sunday Food Collection - first Sunday of each month
ROAR Florida - Tuesday mornings at 10am for games and fellowship
VISTE - needs volunteers to help serve the elderly Lake Parker cleanup - quarterly
Just a few ...
OF THE UPCOMING EVENTS AT FIRST UMC:
Tuesday Tigers - ramps and home repair All Saint's Day November 10 Magic of Bronze Holiday Handbell Concert
Please reach out to ministry area leaders for details.
Pumpkin Patch Begins October 4
Fall Retreat @ Warren Willis Camp November 8-10
Chris Tomlin Concert November 23
KIC Family Event @ Family Fun Center September 22
Children’s Sunday including 3rd Grade Bibles October 13
KIC Family Event- Nativity Project November 17
Hurricane Ian Recovery Team
Dr. Amy-Jill Levine Lecture
November 14-16
November 17
Universal Monsters - led by Pastor Andy Wednesdays in October
JOY (55+ ministry)
- St. Petersburg- Chihuly Collection September 27
- Planning team meeting October 15
- Luncheon and Program, Fellowship Center October 18
- Luncheon and Veteran’s Memorial Park November 15
- Victorian Christmas Stroll with lunch at December 13 the Columbia Restaurant, Tampa
