Midwest Chick's Place

 There are some good things that came out of the Buffalo blizzard.  One of them is the story of ‘Merry Christmas Jay’.  He got stuck in the snow and after a futile attempt to find shelter in nearby houses, gathered two others who were also stuck and they slept in his car until he ran out of gas.  

He then saw a school nearby and gathered about 24 people who were still in distress, broke a window, and got them all to safety.  They only took what they need in order to eat and cleaned up after themselves.  The only trace of them after the storm broke was the broken window, security videos, and a note that Jay left.

Then there’s the story of a ministry who gathered 154 people into their church since they were one of the few places that had power.  They said that only three of them were church members.

Once the couple realized on Friday that their church was one of the only buildings in the area with power they jumped into action. They called neighbors, posted invites to the church on Facebook, and then the people started piling in.

“It started with like, 10 people, two big families, and then it went to 30, then it went to 60, then went to 90, then it went to 100, 120, 128 was the last time I counted, but it went all the way up to 154,” he said. “We had people sleeping everywhere in our church, but we were the only ones with the electricity”…

Al Robinson also stressed that of the 154 people who took refuge in his church, maybe three were members of his congregation.

“Honestly, it was total strangers. We had Asian people here, we had Hispanic people here, we had Arabic speaking people here, we had Nigerians here,” Robinson said. “We had just every possible minority was in our church, and we were all getting together, we celebrated Christmas together.”

The human spirit still burns brightly in some places.  We need to remember that going into 2023.