Meaningful work after retirement
Ed and Ruth Basinger began their retirement journey nearly a decade ago and entered into a period of life where they could choose what they want to do more than what they have to do. What they want to do is continue to pursue meaningful work through service.
Service work and volunteering has been an important and meaningful part of life for both Ed and Ruth for much of their lives. The couple met as young adults in a Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) unit in Buckeye, Arizona, and have maintained a commitment to serve where they are able for more than 50 years.
After completing their educations, raising a family and maintaining professional careers – Ed as a structural engineer working primarily in the oil and gas industry, and Ruth with a background in office work and
accounting – the couple returned to service work following Ed’s retirement in 2014. Since that time, they have served with a variety of faith-based service organizations, including Mennonite Mission Network’s Service Opportunities with our Partners (SOOP – formerly Service Opportunities for Older People), Baptist organization Nailbenders for Jesus and, since 2018, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). A map hanging in their home marks both the places they have lived as a couple, and the places they have served.
Since the middle of 2019, the Basingers have lived at Bluestem Communities’ Schowalter Villa campus in Hesston, Kan., in an independent living neighborhood, which affords them the opportunity to do as many short- or long-term service assignments as they desire all across the country without having to worry about their home while they are away.
“We have had many blessings in our life,” said Ruth. “We feel a calling from God on our lives to pass that on to those who are in need.”
“There are many scriptures thattalk about service to others that resonate with us,” added Ed. “One that particularly speaks to us is: ‘If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion – how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.’” (Reference 1 John 3:17 & 18, NLTse)
In early January 2023, the Basingers left for their ninth MDS assignment – a two-month job as part of an “RV group” working to complete three new-build
homes in McAllen, Texas, for families whose homes were devastated by a 2018 flood. The seven couples in the RV group – all of whom are age 55 and older and who come in their own RVs for several months – picked up after the previous group finished up the exterior and interior rough-framing of walls in December 2022 to complete
plumbing, electrical, insulation, drywall, flooring, lighting and cabinets. By April, the homes should be ready to be turned over to the homeowners.
Mennonite Disaster Service is a volunteer network service organization that cleans up, repairs and rebuilds homes for those affected by disasters such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires in North America. Volunteer groups serve anywhere from a day or a few days at a time to several months. As they have as part of other RV groups, Ed serves as a “workhand” on the job site and Ruth serves as office manager, making sure everything is in place for the site to operate smoothly and efficiently.
“We appreciate the care MDS has for their volunteers and the organization,” said Ruth. “It’s an easy organization to work with.”
Aside from feeling a call to service, the Basingers add that serving in this way and seeing lives turned around hooks a person.
“The joy and excitement in these projects is addictive,” said Ruth. “You see these people at the beginning who are hopeless and helpless in many cases to seeing their absolute joy and excitement at having a place that is their’s at the end – why would you not want to be part of that?”
As the Basingers hop to different service sites across the country, one thing they don’t have to worry about is their home at Schowalter Villa. In everyday living, the campus’s maintenance and grounds crew provides all indoor maintenance from maintaining HVAC systems and appliances to changing light bulbs, to outdoor maintenance such as lawncare and snow removal. An added benefit to living in Bluestem Communities Independent Living, then, is having these teams provide home oversite even while the residents are away enjoying the things and people that bring them joy in this stage of life.
“We knew about Schowalter Villa because my parents lived in Hesston and my mother was a resident of the health care center for sixteen years,” said Ed. “My sister and brother-in-law were also planning to move here, and encouraged us to get on the waiting list. We had never really considered it for ourselves.”
“In fact,” added Ruth, “we had built our dream retirement home in the suburbs of Tulsa (Oklahoma). We thought, ‘Why would we leave this home we put all this work into?’ Then we returned from an MDS assignment to a note on the front door letting us know they couldn’t do the fall lawn treatment because there were too many leaves on the lawn. So we spent our whole first day back raking and hauling leaves.”
The Basingers soon realized the amount of work they would have to give their home every time they returned from being away, and finding people to upkeep it while they were gone. The idea of Schowalter Villa began to rise more to the top of their minds.
“In April 2017 we decided to visit with the Schowalter Villa staff and fill out an application to get on the waiting list,” said Ruth. “They told us we would likely be waiting a while for something to open up.”
At the end of October, Schowalter Villa called with two openings in the Basingers’ desired Prairie Lakes neighborhood.
“At first we thought, ‘We’re not ready yet,’ but the more we thought about it, we thought, ‘What if the right home is there for us right now?’” said Ed. “We came up to look in early November. We looked at the first home and it didn’t really fit what we wanted. We had often talked about the thing we would miss most about our dream retirement home was the back deck that overlooked a pond and was set far enough back that we felt like no one lived around us.”
“Then we walked in here,” said Ruth, indicating their home, the back of which is lined with large windows and overlooks a patio and pond. “We decided this is probably the right thing to do, and it was. We have never looked back. We love it here.”
The Basingers will continue to plan service work assignments for as long as they are able, and they will do so knowing their home is being cared for while they are away.