Won't You Be a Neighbor?

I have been thinking in recent  days  about barn-raisings.  You will find a picture of a barn-raising with this article.    A barn-raising was a community event  in rural communities many years ago.   Neighbors would come together to help a fellow farmer built a barn on their property where they would keep livestock, farm  equipment, harvested crops, and the like.   None of the neighbors would be rewarded with any pay for their labors, but they would know that sooner or later the neighbor they helped would help (or already had helped) them.    This sort of endeavor is not commonly done in most rural communities today though I am told that the Mennonite and Amish communities still make this a common practice. 

I have been thinking of the “barn-raising model” these days as I have watched the devastation that Hurricane Florence and its remnants have caused to the Carolinas and other places. As I write this, many are still in the throes of the devastation.   The cities and places  that I have seen on the national news overwhelmed by raging flood waters are not just places far away, but they are near my home.   They are places I have visited or where people I know and love live.      I am certain that friends and neighbors from near and far will come together and help providing time, talents,  money,and other resources.  People will help these Carolinians not raise a barn, but raise hope and raise homes.  

It will be a long recovery process.    In a conversation with my daughter who lives in Houston recently, she shared that friends in their church who lost their home in Hurricane Harvey last year had just recently got back in their home.  Last year,  people like you and I helped our fellow citizens facing natural disasters in Texas, Puerto Rico, and other places.   Several years ago, people of faith and others helped folks who knew the wrath of Katrina on the Gulf Coast.  

In Luke 10, we read of a time when Jesus is asked the question:  “Who is my neighbor?”   Jesus then proceeds to tell a story about a man left for dead on the Jerusalem to Jericho road where we see a Samaritan reaching out not only to a neighbor, but acting quite neighborly.   This is a time for us to reach out and be neighborly to people in the Carolinas and beyond. This is a time to help the people of the Carolinas and beyond to rise up and out of the flood waters.    To paraphrase Mr. Rogers:   “Won’t you be a neighbor?”    Have a joy-filled week.-   Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  we pray for all those affected by the effects of Hurricaine Florence.    Lord, give us hearts of compassion to reach out;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.