This is a touching and inspiring story relayed to us by the New York Times:
Some couples spend retirement playing the nation’s best golf courses or hopping cruise ships. Not Marteen and Wiley Blankenship. They collect disasters the way other retirees collect passport stamps.
The minute they got the call from Southern Baptist Convention disaster relief leaders that tornadoes had ripped through the South, the Blankenships grabbed their sleeping bags and sturdy shoes and headed out from their home in Decatur, Ala.
Together, they have cleaned up after Hurricane Katrina, mucked out flooded homes in Atlanta and built houses in Sri Lanka. And for the past week they were camped out here in a rural part of northeastern Alabama where 48 lives were lost and thousands more disrupted in the storms.Mr. Blankenship, 70, and Mrs. Blankenship, 69, heated up chili and Salisbury steak, handing it out to people who drove through a church parking lot and packing it into Red Cross vans that carry meals into the remote countryside.
And they did it all for God
You can support the charity of Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief here.
12 Comments
Something a gay couple would never do!
Eric, your comment is beyond ignorant.
And how do you know that, Eric? Let's not be so short sighted
"If ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren..." Very cool story.
The nice thing about a name like "National Organization of Marriage", as opposed to "National Organization for Not Letting Gays Marry", is that if it's about marriage it fits.
It's true that SSM is currently the greatest threat to marriage. However, not everything NOM posts has to be about gay sex.
Good piece, nice to read!
Apparently my sarcasm did not come across in the first comment...
So they take a natural disaster and use it as an excuse to evangelise their beliefs to vulnerable people?
well said Gemma...
Yes Gemma, because God forbid hurting souls know the peace of Jesus.
I think the people would prefer their help without being told about how its all part of Jesus's plan to take away everything, and then promise something that is no better than faery gold... looks shiny, but gone by morning...
Gemma, do you think the people dealing with this disaster would rather be without the very real blankets, food, water, and supplies being brought by this couple? Do you have any idea what would happen to the world if all Christians simply ceased all forms of charity for fear that someone might be accidentally 'infected' with the faith?
Theres a difference between giving charity out of the goodness of your heart, and giving charity at the point of a bible.
You always find christians who claim to want to help but all they want to do is evangelise people who are vulnerable, and using conditional help as part of their pitch.