Best Wishes

 “Many things acquire a new charm when they are rethought and developed from time to time. To rethink the so called Emergency Home Call, developed 25 years ago is an interesting idea”.

Today we know this paid service, as a contact address connected to a central station. The Emergency Home Call, in my opinion, is focused in an emergency situation. This no longer applies to people who live alone, who are unable to leave their residences on their own, and it does not even apply to the younger senior citizens or people living in assisted living housing.

I think we need to try to develop the Emergency Home Call to not only take care of the elderly unable to care for themselves, but to visualize and connect a person’s whole environment.

Thus, today the social contacts that, as a rule, interact separately in a person’s day to day could be connected. These people can be put in contact with each other, providing a safety feeling. This eases the information flow while at the same time turns life more colorful. For some people I visit, the Caritas volunteers and I are the only contacts with the outside world.

I can imagine that the church community would also want to participate in this Emergency Home Call system. In my understanding, these interactive structures hold a great potential.

Here the human being is not only a number without its own personality. Here we can express the Christian attitude that each person is a unique individual, characterized by the spirit, and that the body is the spirit’s expression.

Part of the Christian view of the human being is that man is the combination of body and soul. That body is the person’s way of expression and it requires special attention when weakened.

Yes, we are entities who know how to look beyond the physical condition, whereby suffering and death also play a part, who feel that link. We know how to think beyond our own death. As Christians, we have to consider all these dimensions. A more reaching system from the one we have today, includes at least the possibility of taking seriously and do justice to the human being as a whole, including suffering and death. In this context it is also necessary to mention our volunteer work Elderly Helping the Elderly, which today is already found in some neighborhoods, without big support organizations, and that certainly seems to be the model for the future.

For me, there is not a better example of the wealth of human life aspects than our Jesus Christ’s attitude towards life, suffering, death and resurrection.

I wish that all those involved in the continuous development of the Emergency Home Call in favor of the elderly, sick, handicapped and lonely have the courage to make new moves.

We need people with an innovative spirit to question rigid structures. I’ve known Mr. Hormann for twenty years and I know that he possesses that innovative spirit. Clearly the Emergency Home Call service – I personally prefer to call it simply Home Call – offers opportunities to develop a broader communication context, even more to man’s service.

With God’s blessing!

Udo Tielking, Parish Priest

Director of Herford’s Pastoral Association.

(www.kath-kirche-herford.de)