Tributes continue to be made to the former US president Jimmy Carter, after the announcement that the 98-year-old has entered hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, instead of receiving “additional” medical treatment.

Related: ‘Decades ahead of his time’: history catches up with visionary Jimmy Carter

Raphael Warnock, the Democratic Georgia senator, said: “Across life’s seasons, President Jimmy Carter, a man of great faith, has walked with God. In this tender time of transitioning, God is surely walking with him.”

The oldest living president has opted to spend his “remaining time” at home, a statement by his Carter Center said on Saturday.

The former peanut farmer, Georgia governor and 39th president from 1977 to 1981 has been in ill health for several years, suffering falls and skin cancer melanoma which spread to his liver and brain.

“I, obviously, prayed about it,” he said in 2019, about his cancer diagnosis four years before. “I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I just asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death. It didn’t really matter to me whether I died or lived.”

The Carter Center did not provide details of recent hospitalisations. Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, also referred to Rosalynn Carter, 95, when he said in a tweet: “I saw both of my grandparents yesterday. They are at peace and – as always – their home is full of love.”

At the Carter Center in Atlanta on Sunday, and at Carter’s church in Plains, well-wishers came to pay tribute.

At Maranatha Baptist church, where Carter taught Sunday school for decades, his niece gave an emotional address.

“I just want to read one of Uncle Jimmy’s quotes,” Kim Fuller said, adding: “Oh, this is going to be really hard.”

She referenced this quote from Carter: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. I’m free to choose that something … my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can.”

Fuller said: “Maybe if we think about it, maybe it’s time to pass the baton. Who picks it up, I have no clue. I don’t know. Because this baton’s going to be a really big one.”

In Atlanta, people made the trip to the Carter Center on a spring-like day.