Thursday, March 13, 2008

Good Neighborhood, Great Neighbors

Have we mentioned how awesome our neighbors are? The signs advertising our neighborhood advertise it as a way of life as much as a community. I thought this was a real load of marketing nonsense and mostly related to the environmental nature of the community.

Turns out though that Prairie Crossing is a relic of the past. Neighborhoods like this just don't exist much anymore. I didn't know what we were missing, but I'll tell you our country needs a revolution to get back to a time when this type of caring and generosity are commonplace.

When I was a kid if some got really ill, passed away, had a baby, etc, the women from church would pull together and help out the family in need with food, help, and what have you. This was a function of the church as a community more so than the neighborhoods in which we lived.

I don't know if it is like this in the rest of Prairie Crossing, or just in our little corner of "Station Village" (a small section of the neighborhood), but the beauty of the people here is sometimes overwhelming.

Since Kim and I have no family or real group of friends in the area, they all pitched in and threw us a wonderful baby shower. Since we got home from the hospital, we've been showered again with cooked food (they have each signed up for a day for the next couple of weeks), hand-me-down baby gear and good advice on how to make it through the first weeks. We could have gotten by without all of this, but it would have made things much more difficult.

Every time someone is in need, the families in our vicinity "circle the wagons" and help them through as if this were one big family.

Is that awesome or what? Do the world a favor, pass it on.

1 comment:

Deb Pauley said...

You all are really blessed to have found such a community. It is like the era I grew up in when neighbors were always there for each other. Unfortunately that doesn't exist in many places anymore. I hope you never have to leave that lifestyle.
It's kind of like "It takes a village".
I hope your neighbors read your blog. I wish to thank them for taking such good care of my family. I really apprecialte them.