I love community stories. I hear them often. Sometimes I take them for granted. But sometimes I am drawn to the uniqueness of it. It is so rare. The Church functions as a community; a uniquely bonded group. Rod Dreher over at The American Conservative provides a story from one of his readers on the power of community:
Around 9:00 AM I was at work with my father. (We own a family business that has been in business since 1946. It was founded by my great-grandfather and grandfather.) At around 9 we received a call from our delivery man that he was in a wreck a few miles up the road. He was OK, the other man was OK, and it was not our guy’s fault. The other man had run a red light and hit him.
Our truck was loaded down with hundreds of pounds worth of material. My father and I got in the truck and drove up the road to the site of the wreck. My father got out and spoke with the police, and I went towards our driver. Then the driver and my father got in the truck and drove the half mile up the road to the hospital. I was left to unload and reload the truck onto another truck. I had people who I did not know, the first responders, and people I did know, stop by to help me. We had the truck unloaded and reloaded in a matter of minutes. A random someone, whose name I did not get, brought us bottles of water to stay cool with while we were outside. The police officers and firefighters greeted me by first name and treated us very well. The people we were delivering to, after we called them, told us they were more worried about our driver than their stuff and they would just come get it from us since it was impossible for us to deliver it today. For some of them this would require an hour of of their day at their own personal or company expense. I was truly humbled by the experience.
My town is larger than yours. We have around 20,000 people in it and the county has around 35,000. So while I do not know everyone, people still treat people like humans around here. I experienced that in a great way, and at no time in all of the problem did I ever feel alone, or that I had to go at it on my own. I am thankful that I live in a place like this. I have had several people offer us prayers. Today I learned that there is something even more special about the place I live.
Do you have any stories like this? Feel free to share.<>
