On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:13:18 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Thu, 8 Sep 2005 19:34:26 -0400, "*JimH*" wrote:


`` snippage ~~

Indeed. What a nice family...on both sides. Your family was willing to
take in a family and the other family was willing travel over 1,000 miles
north to start a new life and not depend on the government for their
survival

It's interesting how it happened actually. Our Pastor called Sunday
and asked if we had some spare rooms and he explained the
inter-denominational deal our parish was involved in. We said sure
and the next thing you know, we were put in touch with them and the
ball started moving.

When you stop to consider all the private and interfaith agencies
involved in this, it's staggering. United (I think - one of the
majors anyway) flew them free of charge out of Atlanta to TF Green in
RI, one of the parish members picked them up and got them a hot meal
along the way, my two kids who are still local and my DIL busted their
butts to clean up the apartment, a couple of friends donated and
hauled some spare furniture up three flights of stairs, we took up a
quick collection and got $1,500 for their immediate use and my wife
and I supplemented the debit card we got for them - hell, even the DMV
got in the act. When I explained the situation to the examiner, she
couldn't have been m

ore accommodating and her supervisor was a genuine
gentleman and cut more red tape in ten minutes than I ever knew
existed. The guy who hired this fellow has kids in the wife's school
and knew the situation - he has the business backlog and hired a
welder.

So it was more than an individual effort - it was a bunch of people
all working towards a common goal.

And in a sense, everybody wins.

And I've seen this often enough around here - it's just the way folks
are. Living in the country, you do things like that. If one farmer
has a problem, others help with machinery, farm hands, space -
whatever is needed. My dogs get called at all hours to herd heifers
back into their pens or pastures. Every once in a while a cooler will
appear in front of the garage filled with fresh heavy cream which we
turn into ice and whipped cream.

It takes more than somebody saying yes - it takes a bunch of people to
make things happen.

What Liz and I did is just a small part of that total effort.


Way to go, Tom. You'll undoubtedly get more out this than they will.
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."