Hymns of Hope and Healing
Date: March 26, 2007

They come most every Sunday morning, if the Lord is willing and the Creek don’t rise, bringing God’s word and servants’ hearts to the little chapel that sits about halfway up Easy Street.

Designed to meet a very real need, the chapel’s tiny pews help prepare Floyd Medical Center’s inpatient rehabilitation patients for a return to active lives after stroke, surgery or other medical complications. For many of these patients a return to church is an extremely important goal, and those same patients dearly miss attending Sunday morning services with their friends and family.

“Patients have described to us that one of their most important community events to return to after completing rehab is their church. So, several years ago, the Hubbard family responded to this need by donating funds to create our precious chapel,” said Karen Sablon, director of Rehabilitation Services at Floyd.

Since January of 2003, the Rev. David Pearson and his wife, Bettie, have dressed in their Sunday best and made their way to the Amanda Hubbard de Costerd Memorial Chapel to lead a small, itinerant congregation in worship.

The retired Seventh Day Baptist missionaries spent 28 years in Malawi, Africa, and retired in Rome to be near their two daughters and 10 grandchildren. They discovered this opportunity after Mrs. Pearson suffered a broken hip and was a Floyd Rehabilitation Services patient. Rev. Pearson noted the beauty and serenity of the little chapel, the desire of patients to worship and realized he and his wife could serve.

“We became acquainted with the lovely facility and the chapel and all, yet there was no one to conduct service, so we offered,” he said.

He asked permission to begin holding a short weekly service in the chapel, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now Floyd Support Services Volunteers, Rev. Pearson and his wife are official members of the Floyd family, and they are always willing to serve. Most Sundays Mrs. Pearson leads their small congregation in hymns from a small electronic keyboard and Mr. Pearson delivers a sermon.

“That was about four years ago and we are still doing it,” he said. “Sometimes we only have one or two, but one Sunday we had about 15.”

The patients may not always wear their church clothes, but Rev. Pearson doesn’t mind.

“It’s fine if they have to come in their pajamas, because the Lord is just fine with that,” he told Karen.

Not long ago, the preacher noticed his parishioners were having trouble remembering the words to some of the hymns they sang, so he and Miss Betty took it upon themselves to produce a special hymnbook for use in the Easy Street chapel.

The pair selected songs from an old hymnal, photocopied them, glued the 66 pages back-to-back by hand and had them spiral bound, creating their own hymnal. They titled it Rehab’s Hymns of Hope and Healing, and it’s used whenever a service is session.

They purposefully kept the hymnals small and light to make them easier for patients to hold and use, and they were equally thoughtful in their song choices.

The first hymn is We Gather Together, and the very last is God Be With You (Till We Meet Again). Right in the middle is the familiar and fitting, Just As I Am.

Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt
Fightings and fears within, without
On Lamb of God, I come! I come!

When Karen asked Rev. Pierson how long he and his wife thought they would continue to serve in Floyd’s little rehab chapel, he said he is now 75 years old and that he wants to keep helping for as long as the two of them are able.

“We have met some wonderful people. Our relationships are short-lived, but we get to meet others. We are blessed to have the opportunity,” he said. “The patients and staff are so appreciative, and we get a spiritual lift out of it too, you know.”

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