Help Families Who Have Suffered Home Burnouts Get a New Start
January 30, 2009
Heros come in all sizes and all ages. For Sharisse Harrison, the hero is her three-year-old son, Josiah, who warned his family that their house was on fire, saving them.
In the early 1940s, our Missions’ founder Father Frank Casey wrote of another hero, who saved the life of his youngest granddaughter. One winter night, a fire broke out in the family’s small house and everyone got out safely but the little girl. Risking his life, grandfather ran back into the flames and found her hiding under the bed. He picked her up and, shielding her with his own body, stumbled and fell through the flames and smoke as he made it outside.
Sadly, grandfather didn’t survive, but Father Casey’s missionaries cared for the little girl until she healed and provided her family with medicine, clothes and food they so badly needed.
In poor communities like ours, it only takes minutes for a house to be engulfed in flames, leaving a family destitute and homeless. Too many of the poor have no choice but to rent worn and run-down homes left in bad repair over the years. Old electrical wiring, open-flame gas heaters and crumbling wood siding are a tragic combination.
The Harrison family knows this tragedy first-hand. Sharisse had washed her children’s clothes by hand one recent winter night. Because it was cold and raining, she hung the clothes on a wire her husband had strung across the front room of their tiny house. A small gas heater would help the clothes dry.
Several members of the Edmundite Missions' parish, St. Elizabeth's, lost their homes in 1945 Selma.
She then went into the back room to feed her baby powdered milk and grits. Suddenly her son Josiah ran into the room crying, Fire. Clothes had fallen off the wire onto the gas heater.
Before she could reach him, Josiah raced back into the smoky front room while she grabbed the baby and ran out back. In all the confusion, smoke and fear, her first thought was, would she ever see her son?
Thankfully, the family found each other outside. As they stood in the drizzling rain, watching flames shooting through the windows, Sharisse and her husband Carl thanked God they had survived. But they also worried, how they would start over again?
It’s a nightmare I’ve seen far too often. Each time I hear a fire engine roar by, I say a quick prayer for the safety of the family involved. Driving through the neighborhoods around the Missions house where I live, I am saddened by the number of burnt, blackened shells still standing, dreadful reminders of the tragic losses poor families face far too often.
Our outreach ministers in four counties respond to families and elders who suffer burnouts and other emergencies with food, clothes, medicine and basic necessities. Thankfully, most of our home fires do not involve serious injuries, however when a Selma man suffered third-degree burns over most of his body two years ago, the Edmundite Missions helped his family purchase much-needed medicine and supplies for his recovery.
For many families like Sharisse, suffering from a house burnout, the Bosco Food Kitchen is a lifesaver. It’s hard for a family to start over in today’s tough economy. Facing minimum wages, job cutbacks, or plain not having work, Bosco’s daily nutritious meal ensures that children and their parents won’t go hungry.
Today I must come to you for aid to families like the Harrisons. Each family who suffers a burnout receives assistance that can cost up to $775 for food, medicine and basic necessities. Your gift of $16 to $25 will help me buy much needed food. I need your help to provide emergency assistance, money I do not have, to help destitute families who face many cold days and nights ahead.
I remember you daily in my prayers, calling on God’s mighty protection to watch over you and your loved ones. You can be a hero, too, by helping me reach out to the poor with His love, a refuge for the oppressed; a stronghold in times of trouble. Psalm 9:9
In His Service,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
