A call for financial assistance

Dear readers, an excellent organization could use your assistance.

My friend Lisa Bedford (of Survival Mom fame) is putting out a call for financial assistance to an organization severely damaged by Hurricane Laura.

The organization is called FriendShips, a Christian international relief group. As Lisa wrote, “They have ministered to some of the most vulnerable people around the world, providing medical care and disaster relief for many years.”

Lisa’s son recently joined the group – literally days before Hurricane Laura aimed a direct hit on the organization’s fleet of ships (which are old World War II-era cargo ships).

The organization reported:

"After several hours of relentless winds and pounding rain, the wind uprooted several of our mooring bollards (these are large steel bits that secure ships to the land sunk eight feet in the ground and secured in cement). We tied our ships to these with several lines knowing the force they would be under, hoping the lines would not snap.

They did not snap but instead the wind drug these bollards up out of the earth and took off with them and their eight feet of cement, setting six of our seven ships adrift, several sustaining significant damage."

Every one of their smaller boats sank. Their storage containers, storage sheds, and their airplane hangar were either completely destroyed or severely damaged.

Power lines have snapped, and food supplies are on the verge of spoiling if generators are not quickly found and fueled.

Lisa added: “FriendShips.org is an all-volunteer organization. They operate on a slim, shoestring budget, and today, at this moment, they are in dire need of help. Their mission is to reach out to those in need, and, in fact, in the hours and days leading up to the hurricane's arrival, they were making excited plans for how they would help those in need around them. That's who they are and what they do.”

Helping FriendShips is not just helping the organization. It’s helping the organization help others, since that’s their whole mission. Lisa asked me to help put out the word for financial assistance.

Please join us in helping this fine organization during their time of need.

Packing Christmas boxes

Every year the local Elks Lodge packs Christmas boxes of food and gifts for those who request them. This morning we went and helped with the project.

On average the Elks donate supplies to 250 families. Each family receives two boxes of food (more for larger families). We got there early just as they were taping together the boxes.

Food is donated or purchased wholesale from local grocery stores. At minimum, each box has the contents of this list, but this doesn't even touch on everything that gets included. This list is just the dry, boxed, or canned items. There are also frozen turkeys or hams, fresh fruits and vegetables, bags of potatoes, bread, pumpkin pies, and other goodies -- literally enough to feed a family for a week or more with careful planning. If there's extra food left over after all the boxes are packed, then it's divvied up and spread out among the boxes.

Here's a fraction of the donated or purchased food, waiting to be portioned out into boxes.

Ranged along each side of the hall are stations for presents, sorted according to age and gender. Gifts are donated by individuals. Each family gets a minimum of one gift per child, more if there are extra gifts left over when all the requests are filled.

While some people set up the boxes for the food, other people started "running" gifts to the various stations.

Volunteers started filling the boxes.

I stationed myself at one of the the gift-wrap tables. Along with many others, I wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. Kids acted as runners, delivering a pile of gifts ("This is for Girls, 7 to 9!") then ran the wrapped presents back to the appropriate stations.

Gradually the piles of wrapped gifts replaced the unwrapped.

Lots of industry.

A portion of the box contents.

One sad little note is, for the first time, five-pound bags of flour and sugar, bags of noodles, and packages of pancake mix were not being included for distribution. Why not? Because too many recipients simply throw them away. The reason is -- I'm not kidding -- they don't know what to do with them. So the Elks volunteers take a lot of the staples and give them to grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, presumably because grandparents know what to do with staples.

But the important thing is to get boxes to where they're needed, rather than worry about people who don't know how to cook from scratch.

Late in the morning, Don (who was acting as a "go-fur" during much of the morning) was sent for a bunch of pizzas to feed the hungry crew, many of whom had skipped breakfast in order to get there early.

We missed church this morning to help with this project, but we figured this was like a church service all by itself. It was wonderful to be among a lot of folks with Good Things on their mind.

On the way home we passed some ice fishermen. The weather has been above freezing lately, so I guess these guys are trying to get their fishing in while they can.

Mercy and Charity update

I can't believe all the wonderful responses I'm getting on my Mercy and Charity post. Thank you all for your input, and keep the comments coming!

What I hope to do is harvest many of your thoughts and include actual brief quotes within that portion of the book. Regrettably I won't be able to give direct credit where credit is due (a book can't have hyperlinks, after all) so I want to make sure that's all right with everyone.

Don't stop commenting, lots of people are getting some very good information from your opinions!

Mercy and charity?

Dear readers, I would like your input.

As you may or may not know, I'm working on my next book. The subject (no surprise) is preparedness. The book will be about evenly divided between the "philosophy" of prepping, and the nuts and bolts of how to go about doing it.

I'm at the point in writing where I want to address the subject of mercy and charity. Throughout the book I make abundantly clear the distinction between those who cannot prepare, and those who will not prepare. Those who are unable to prepare might include the ill, the disabled, the elderly, children, those in truly dire financial circumstances, etc. I genuinely believe these people are deserving of every bit of assistance we can offer.

But that's not the category I'm addressing. Instead, I'm wondering how far our mercy and charity should extend toward those who were unwilling to prepare, even though they could. Clearly these types of people must be divided into numerous categories.

At one end of the spectrum are those who spend all their free time ridiculing your prepping efforts and calling you merry but rude names for your concerns about the future. If the bleep were to hit the fan and they came knocking at your door asking for help, what would you do?

At the other end of the spectrum are those who live a comfortable lifestyle and simply are unaware of any potential problems. They don't believe the economy could ever collapse or anything could ever happen to the power grid. If the bleep were to hit the fan and they came knocking at your door asking for help, what would you do?

And then there's everyone else across the whole rest of the spectrum, all of whom have reasons of their own for not preparing. If the bleep were to hit the fan and they came knocking at your door asking for help, what would you do?

There are endless variables among those who will not prepare, and endless variables that will dictate our actions. But a time may come when they will become supplicants for our charity. A lot will depend on the attitude of the supplicant, but the fact remains none of us will be able to run a soup kitchen. We should not compromise the safety of our own family to help others. Or should we?

Before anyone starts spouting off about meeting everyone at the door with a shotgun, please keep something in mind. The time may come when our circumstances change, and we're the supplicant. Anyone's circumstances can change in a heartbeat. Should that day come, I hope I can expect charity and mercy from others.

So here's where I'd love to get everyone's input. What are your thoughts about this aspect of prepping? It would be nice to hope all Preppers are putting aside a certain portion of their supplies for charitable aid, but not everyone can -- a lot of people are prepping by the skin of their teeth and can barely pull together suitable supplies to meet the needs of their own families. So what should we do?

I look forward to everyone's thoughts!

My selfish life

Okay, so I finished my NaNoWriMo word count for the day. Big flippin' deal.

This is what someone else did today.

Man am I a selfish witch. Here I am, catering to a selfish whim by working on a selfish project... while this woman is literally doing the work of the Lord.

I hang my head in shame.

What a Christmas present!

I meant to post this much earlier; in fact, right after Christmas. So here’s a real neat belated Christmas story.

My friend Linda and her family have a fun tradition on Christmas Eve. They drive around and look at houses with fancy Christmas lights, then they all go out for pie at some greasy spoon. Here’s the fun part: while their tab for the pie might be around $10 or so, they leave an enormous tip for the waitress, maybe $50. They leave before the tip is “discovered” as a nice anonymous gift to a different waitress every year.

So right after Christmas, I emailed my friend and asked her how her annual mega-tip pie excursion went, and this was her reply (posted with permission):
______________________________________________

We actually broke tradition and didn't go out for pie this year. We were all tired and didn't want to go back to town. However, the reason for being worn out was a really, really special.

We adopted a family that was in desperate need of basically everything. I heard about them when I was doing some other charity work and presented the idea of giving this family a Christmas instead of us. We are blessed and have everything we could possibly need, so why not take the money we'd spend on gifts for one another and give this family a Christmas to remember?

So I went SHOPPING. And I mean SHOPPING. I needed THREE carts! I bought everything a young family with children might need for Christmas breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then I decided that wasn't enough... I bought them enough food for another week (hamburger, chicken, etc., etc.). Then I bought non-perishables by the cart-load. I got soups and pastas and rice and nutritious cereals and canned beans and canned fruits and canned veggies.

I was on a roll and having the time of my life! I'm serious! I don't think I've ever felt this great! I felt like dancing while pushing the cart! LOL

Then came the fun part..... I'd gotten the sizes of clothing and shoes for the little girls and I went shopping for them! Oh, that was FUN! I got coats and shoes and dresses and tights and pants and undies and bows for their hair.... (these little girls were showing up at Early Intervention with no socks, shoes, or coats when it was 18 degrees outside three weeks ago!) Then I bought them toys that were developmentally appropriate plus a couple of dolls and some stuffed animals. I also got shape sorter tub toys because I remember how much Emily loved those at age three (one girl is three and the other is nearly six, but both are developmentally delayed – the three-year-old still doesn't have speech and just started walking). For the mother I got her a really warm, cozy robe and slippers, new bedding, and a $50 gift card to Wal-Mart. (There is no dad in the picture.)

Then we showed up on their doorstep and delivered all of the wonderful stuff! Emily and I wrapped the toys and clothing for the kids. I didn't wrap the coats and shoes because I wanted them to have those right away. I tried to get Jim to wear a Santa costume but he drew the line at that. LOL

The mother looked stunned. Just…shellshocked. She couldn't even speak. We just kept carrying in boxes and bags after boxes and bags of food and more food and gifts, wrapped and unwrapped. Jim, Emily and I each made at least four trips each. I kept saying to the mom, “This is perishable so you need to put it in the fridge right away” (there was milk, juice, meat, fruit, eggs, etc., etc.) and she just sat and stared so I put it all in the fridge. Talk about a bare fridge prior to me opening it – and when we walked out it was no longer bare!

If she manages the food well there's enough meat for probably ten days and enough non-perishables (such as beans and rice, etc.) for another month at least.

I found this family via a circuitous route. I was volunteering with the 4H group and needed to find a family for our group to sponsor. I was also donating some stuff for Coalition for Kids. I had the idea to ask at the Coalition for a family for our 4H group to sponsor. They had two families that were in very dire straits. They gave me the background on both and I was supposed to choose. Hmmm. How on earth to choose one over the other? I picked the one that seemed the most desperate, at least on paper. After hanging up the phone with the coordinator I just stood there and felt terrible that I knowingly left another family behind. I immediately called Jim but couldn't reach him to get his okay for my plan, but that didn't slow me down because I know his heart. I called the coordinator back and told her that OUR family would sponsor the other family in need. I thought she was going to cry!

We all had SO much fun with this. We have always given a lot to the local food band and Meals on Wheels, etc. I write a lot of checks all year long but especially this time of year.... but this felt SO much better. Maybe because it's personal? That's probably it.

So, there's the whole story. It was truly a life-changing experience. It's one thing to write a check and help from a distance. It feels entirely different to see the people you're helping. Both are wonderful and I'll continue writing checks whenever I can give, but the hands-on is just so... MOVING.

So now you know why we were tired. Well, *I* was tired, LOL. Plus I needed to work on pies and rolls because we were having company on Christmas so it all came together to keep us home. Someone didn't get their gigantic tip, but a family got a whole lot more! Yep, we're planning to do it again next year!
________________________________

Is it any wonder I’m blessed to call this woman a friend?

Christmas boxes

Every year we help pack boxes for needy families in our area through the benevolence of the local Elks Lodge. This year - understandably - there's been a sharp rise in the number of requests for boxes (unemployment in our county hovers around 20%). This morning after church we went to help wrap presents, but found to our astonishment that everything had already been done.

Turns out there was a huge number of volunteers - around a hundred or so - who descended on the Elks during church hours and got everything finished. While our kids were disappointed that their yearly tradition of helping out was done before they could do anything, we all were impressed that so many were willing to pitch in and make it happen.

A lady named Adie (the blond woman on the right) is the one who organizes the whole thing. She's a wonderful example of the kind of minor miracle makers who reside across our country. With her are some of the volunteers who wrapped presents and packed boxes.



The boxes all laid out and filled with food (each family gets two boxes).



A list of dry foods that go into the boxes: Oatmeal, sugar, flour, stuffing, noodles, cranberry sauce, rice, pancake mix, noodle soup, peanut butter, ketchup, tomato soup, corn, green beans, sweet peas, fruit cocktail, applesauce, peaches, evaporated milk. What's not listed are the frozen or perishable foods that will also be included: frozen turkeys, frozen chickens, and frozen potatoes. Then each box will be given to a family along with gifts according to the number, ages, and genders of the kids in the families. There are also toiletries and knickknack gifts for the elderly since, after all, it's just nice to have something - however small - to open on Christmas morning, don't you agree?


Children's presents are wrapped and grouped according to age and gender.


This is the boy's side of the hall.


This is the girl's side.


Some of the leftover food, either purchased or donated by area grocery stores. This will all be given to the local food bank.


While it's sad to have so many needy families in a community as small as ours, I'm proud of this town for rallying together to help those who need help.

Inspiration

A reader just brought the following Bible verse to my attention:

Ephesians 4:28

He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

Dunno, this just struck me as - well - sensible. As in, duh! Ain't it great?