Sixty-year-old Meredith Giles of Feura Bush is taking her role as a senior very seriously.
“I’m thinking of how I can be more effective with the years I have left,” she said.
Giles co-pastors Mt. Moriah Church on Route 9W in Glenmont with her husband, Stephen, and they are getting re-fired instead of retired.
“These are the years to springboard into another aspect of your work or ministry,” she said. “You need to stay connected to other people through community, purpose, talents and gifts that will encourage others.”
Besides pastoring a growing multi-ethnic church in a suburban setting, Meredith is helping form a college group to encourage young adults, teaching at the Mt. Moriah Academy while finding time for nine grandchildren.
Additionally, Meredith and Stephen have worked tirelessly to address the problem of millions of orphans by doing what a church can do: they built one orphanage. As this Kenyan children home matures, so do the workers and so have the children that are “aging out.”
With regard to the region around the home four hours north of Nairobi, over twenty pastors now seek counsel and oversight from the Giles after years of relationship building.
Moreover, some of the kids from the orphanage are no longer children, and they are diving into small business ventures through the church’s micro-funding efforts. One of these young adults opened a kiosk where he repairs small appliances such as lamps and irons. Another is raising chickens.
These are no small accomplishments in an area where a buck or two a day is a respectable income.
They are not stopping there. To make the orphanage self-sustaining, they are now raising $20,000 to build a full-fledged chicken barn.
Meredith chronicled several heart-tugging stories of how some of these orphans came to The Mt. Moriah Children’s Home in Nyahururu in her book, “Beloved Child.” She’s also found time to pen two other volumes, “Surprised By God In The Midst of Hell” and “Time Alone With God.”
With the orphanage work expanding all of the time and the books being translated into Hindi, Pakistani and eventually Spanish, this young senior is living proof that our elder years can be productive and change lives around the world.
If you’d like to use your time and/or resources to help people here and around the globe, contact Meredith at 426-4510.
Robert J. LaCosta is the “Beloved Blogger.” If you’d like to receive his daily inspirational blog, write him at [email protected]. If you have a senior to nominate to appear in “Retiring Retirement,” call Capital District Senior Spotlight at 439-4949 or email the columnist.
