I’ve been deeply moved, as have many others, by reading your personal responses to the post on “Personal Economics and Uncertainties,” Here’s one I thought I’d bring forward, as a post.
innkeeper says:
With the colorful foliage falling down in rural Maine, the deepset poverty and desperation is visible just driving down most roads. Mile after mile of trailers, latchkey children with a parent who is out working, elderly in terror of foreclosure on their dilapidated farmhouse, and frantic attempts to start home businesses (quickly), are evident. Trucks, and cars are parked right alongside these beautiful scenic routes, displaying hand-written “For Sale” notices. My neighbors aren’t eating; or they are, many are not able to fill their prescriptions. There are precious few jobs, and during the past six years,the State of Maine, became the largest employer. Small business simply didn’t survive. And, there is precious little other corporate or sales work here. Locals suffer each winter.
This annual change of weather, changes my daily activities. I spend much of them cooking, delivering clothes (especially shoes and coats), to little ones, desperate ones, and speaking so as to calm the older ones who are without heat. Coming from urban professional work eight years ago, I never expected to see basic needs so lacking, in the homes of working people.
Now, running an antique Inn, two weeks ago I received four phone calls from former co-workers whom I had known from Hollywood/Burbank/New York/Florida. Each was a pleasant surprise, as I had not heard their voices in as many as 16 years.
Each caller is about 60 to 62 years-old, and each had owned a small business with a high-end technical specialty at which they had worked 80-hour weeks, for a few decades. Each asked me if I would “take them in” as they could not live any longer in their homes (all had been on the market for a long while/two had taken in boarders who had already lost their homes), and their retirements seemed to have unexpectedly vaporized.
Each needed a place of refuge, and expressed a resignation that there was nothing more to be done.
Each really wanted to begin a new business as over the past few years, their “market” had “dried up” or “gone to India.” Each was looking to change professions.
These friends were not the high rollers in the world, or even the big spenders. No “kitchen redos” with these folks.
These people poured their hours into serving others through a business they had nurtured. They are the honest, hard-working technically-expert friends, whom I admire so much.
So, it’s hard to say what will happen here at the Inn in Maine, this coming winter. But, based on these calls, it is possible that we will be creating some kind of new “business entity” as together, we haul wood to the furnaces, shovel out neighbors, and cook for those who cannot fend for themselves.
The Lord has His Plan working here. My former friends and many neighbors, don’t know Jesus Christ as Savior… yet.
The dire situation here, is an open door, for the Gospel.
(+38 rating, 39 votes)
Loading...