Newsletter-Jan 2023

Dear Friends and Family at Trinity,

   On December 16, two friends and I were suppose to go to Brookings, SD, for a Home Free concert; we were going to make an overnight of the trip. However as you may recall the weather was horrific, driving conditions were frightening, and almost every road in SD was either closed due to weather or was under a “no travel advisory”.  We stayed home.

  The incident brought back a happy memory of a time when I was serving in Beresford, SD, and there was a major blizzard.  Beresford is just off of the interstate. As road conditions worsened and visibility became less, people began to pull off of the interstate and crowd into the two truck stops. Then the interstate was closed, and people were stranded in-between towns.  About 3 o’clock that afternoon I got a phone call from the police asking if we would open our church to stranded motorists; the truck stops were over-flowing.  The motel had filled up hours before.

Of course, I said “Sure; our church is always open anyway (drove insurance agents mad!)How many do you think we should expect?”  The police officer said, “I suppose 6-8”.  “I’ll put on the coffee pots and get out the industrial cookies (Oreos, Fig Newtons, sandwich cookies) we always keep in the kitchen for emergencies” The first two carloads arrived—hunters returning from a week long camping/ hunting trip in Montana.  They were soon followed by an elderly couple, then a family with three little girls, then a young mother and a little boy, then...needless to say the numbers continued to grow and the snow continued to come down! It became obvious cookies and coffee were not going to be sufficient so the police officer took me to the grocery store and I cleaned it out of everything I thought could be “stretched’ to feed the growing number of guests at the church.

  I am always amazed at how God provides.  By the time I got back to the church with hamburger, eggs, bread, canned vegetables, and more, a lady from across the street from the church, not a member, just a neighbor, called to say she had noticed our  church was filling up with people and she had 2 pounds of hamburger if we needed it. We needed it.  Another neighbor, also not a member, called to say she had just baked a cake and some cookies, could we use them. We could.

  I took all of the groceries and the donated food into the kitchen and announced that I had delivered it but they were responsible for using it.  One of the stranded women said, “I ran a restaurant for 40 years; I know how to cook for crowds. Do any of you other ladies want to help?”  Most did want to help; it was something to do.

  In the meantime I continued to haul blankets and pillows from the parsonage, which was literally right next door to the church, to the church.  I also hauled games and cards, and a tiny portable TV so they could continue to monitor weather.  I told them they were welcome to go into the sanctuary and sleep on the pews; they were obviously comfortable; members of the congregation slept in them every Sunday!

 About that time a six year boy and his daddy, members of the church who lived about a block away came pulling a sled piled high with bedding. The little boy announced that he had “brunged’ blankets to help the people stuck in the church.

  It happened that the tow truck business in town was owned by church members; as they continued to rescue people from stalled cars on the interstate, they automatically brought them to the church.  The guest list continued to grow.

  When it got time to settle down for the night, we put the family with the 3 little girls in a Sunday School room and the fragile elderly couple in another. The men turned the long dining room tables on their sides to create small but semi-private sleeping areas for the 54 people now gathered in the church. 

   As I was getting ready to leave and go back to my house for the night I asked if there was anything else they needed.  One of the men jokingly said, “NO I think you have provided well for us...although a country dance band might be nice”...and I swear, I swear this is true, he had no more than gotten the words out of his mouth when the doors opened and there stood 4 people, dressed in western costumes! They were a country dance band who got stalled trying to get to a wedding reception!’

  In the morning the school superintendent, also a member of the church came to tell anyone who wanted or needed a shower that he would open up the showers in the school. The Montana hunters jumped at that!

  By noon our guests were gone, leaving behind an unexpected, and unnecessary  offering, and a note, “Thank you for savings our lives; we would have died in our cars on the highway last night”.

  The story always makes me cry.  That night, there was room in the inn for weary travelers. There were people willing to help in so many ways.  That is the role of the church isn’t it...to offer help and hope, to those who are weary and in trouble, and to do so, in the name of the Christ, who came to save us all...   pjr