Imagine

JACKIE ACKER UPDATE:

“I forgot to mention earlier that we went over to Jackie’s trailer after the funeral and gave her three rose bushes and a card from all of us: Mary and Wilf [PDA] and all the Pearlington Recovery Center crew. We ended up with donations from a jar at Pearl*Mart, totalling $100. She said she spent all day yesterday crying and asked the Lord to just get her through the funeral.

With the Lord by her side and all the community standing with her, she is determined to make it through....”

CANADA JON UPDATE:

I will be returning to Pearlington on June 30 - July 10, 2006. I am looking forward to assisting wherever I can and reconnecting with my volunteer and resident friends. I also plan to belt out a tune or two at every opportunity....

PEARLINGTON RECOVERY CENTER UPDATE:

Yesterday, the SeaCoast Echo in Bay St. Louis did a great article on the Pearlington Recovery Center. Like all such articles, writer Michael Prince chose to focus the article almost solely on Laurie Spaschak and Bob Putnam. Laurie was very quick to point out in a letter the next day to Mr. Prince:

“The story of Pearlington is not about me, or any one group. We are extremely fortunate to have volunteers from all over the country who come here with not only giving hearts and time, but materials and resources as well. The rebuilding of Pearlington is in their hands as well and their impact is obvious if you look around and see the homes that are being rebuilt day by day. The special thing about Pearlington is that we have all managed to work together, through tough times and differences, regardless of faith, race, age or any of the usual dividing factors - because we all want to ‘git-er done!’”

The article is available on the SeaCoast Echo web site.

Thank you for all the many kind words over the months about this blog and our new blog, Sharing Pearlington. You have voted with your “clicks.” It is a very time-consuming project and a labor of love that is unfolding just the way I dreamed it would. In an interesting way, we are connected on the Internet in a way that is similar to our connection, through God, on a spiritual level: perfectly and equidistantly. We send out an intention and someone responds to bring us resources to meet need.

This “experiment” in cooperation in Pearlington is a model of that connection and I am proud to be part of such a hard-working, humble, loving and mutually supportive community. To paraphrase Mother Teresa:

“God does not ask us to be perfect. He asks us to be faithful.”

This work is a work of Faith - belief without evidence - that we can rebuild Pearlington and hold the light high so that others might find their way. We hold that light, not only for the residents, but for each other in the volunteer community. After all, we are just ordinary people with an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference in our world.

What the future brings, we do not know. God doesn’t reveal it, lest some of us lose our nerve. We don’t need to know where it all ends up; the journey IS the destination. We only need to concentrate on the very next step, along the path to our seeming “impossible” Dream.


“You may say I’m a Dreamer,
But, I’m not the only one;
I hope some day you’ll join us,
And the world will be as one.”