Families We've Helped
Pay It Forward in Arkansas
"It's just another cold day," I thought to myself as I started the vehicle to take the girls to meet their school bus. It was 6:00 AM and still dark outside. I was barely awake and the worries came flooding back into my sleepy mind as to how we were going to get through another cold mountain winter.
Nearly every winter here in the Ouachita mountains we get an ice storm that leaves us without electricity for a day or two and all we had for heat in our Arkansas cabin here in the middle of nowhere were a few 1500 watt electrical resistance space heaters. The walls of our cabin had no insulation and our electrical service was rated at 60 amps, not exactly modern service. Taken together, this made heating our small cabin rather difficult as we could not run too many heaters at once.
As I sat in our truck with the heater running full blast, waiting for the girls to come out of the house, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be lovely to have all this heat in the house? It's a pity this truck is too small to spend the winter!"
The girls finally came running from the house, their little hands chaffing in the bitter cold. "Quick! Get in the truck!" I called out to them as they argued over who was going to sit in the front seat of the crew cab pickup.
"Aaaah! It's so warm!" they both exclaimed as we drove down the old dirt driveway, three-tenths of a mile long, leading to the dirt road off of which we live and our mail box. I switched the truck off, and we sat and waited. There was just not enough gas, or money, to let the truck run for very long. We sat huddled in the car, feeling the heat slowly dissipating and watching the windows begin to frost up. Every now and then I would start the vehicle and allow it to run for a couple of moments to warm us, but all too soon I would have to switch it off again.
Finally the bus arrived, the children boarded, and I drove back to our cabin. The house was miserably cold, the only warm place being back in bed next to my disabled veteran husband until the sun rose, bringing light and welcome warmth.
Our difficulties began when Social Security made a mistake with calculating our monthly benefit payments, a mistake that was impossible for us to realize until the day that they sent us a letter stating that our new benefit amount would be much less than we had been receiving. That notification was a dire blow, because we depended on that money and with winter setting in the electricity bill would be much higher as it always is in winter.
Fortunately, during the year we had cut corners and scrimped in any way we could to save enough money to have our electrical service upgraded from 60 to 200 amps, with enough left over to have a wood stove installed. But we were now also facing the problem of receiving a lot less money from Social Security and I was stumped as to what we could do to meet the new shortfall. As I sat at my computer, examining this seemingly insurmountable problem from every angle, over and over again, I thought to myself, "How can I get some extra income but still be at home to attend to my husband?"
My husband is a one hundred percent permanently and totally disabled veteran, having been disabled in-the-line-of-duty, and subsequently rated Individually Unemployable due to his service connected disabilities. I am his caregiver. I cannot go out to work as he needs care during the day, and so I needed to find employment that would allow me to work from home.
I sat down at my computer, an older machine left over from brighter days, and connected to the Internet. It seemed absurd to me that we even had Internet service when the house didn't have sufficient heating, but the money I save on gasoline by paying our bills online justified the expenditure for the service many times over. In my search for a work-from-home position, I shared my family's situation with a nonprofit specializing in military spouse employment. I confessed that due to our recent financial hardship, we would not be having a Christmas this year because the money for presents was going toward installing some viable heating in our home.
The next thing I knew, I was asked to write out our Christmas wish list of gifts that my husband, I, and my girls would like to receive and instructed me to send it to Randi Cairns at “Home Front Hearts”. Wow! What a feeling! Was she serious? I couldn't believe this was really happening! Could there actually be such wonderful, caring, goodhearted people out there, giving to others in this cold, seemingly uncaring world? For some time now, my husband and I had lost our faith in our fellow man, and along with it our hope of ever getting past all our hardships. We strove to be strong, and managed to cope, but there was always a nagging, underlying anxiety that we just weren't going to make it through all the financial difficulties we faced. When I recovered from the shock of this exciting offer, I ran to my husband and in one excited, breathless, run-on sentence told him what was happening. I had to tell him two or three times before he could actually believe what he was hearing.
“This amazing lady, Randi, is going to send us gifts for Christmas! It's really going to happen!” I explained as I stood beside his chair, grinning from ear-to-ear with tears of relief and happiness rolling down my cheeks.
Finally, when I had convinced my husband that I hadn't suffered a breakdown from the stress of our situation, and that the news was real, he looked at me with wonder, I shook his shoulder two or three times to make sure he was really getting it, and he said to me, "I believe our prayers have been answered."
I sent Randi an email as instructed, feeling rather shy about the whole thing, but excited at the same time. She wrote back to me with such kindness and sensitivity that I suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable with accepting the much needed help. There was no judgment or condescension, as one might expect to feel when down on your luck and asking for help, I would have felt that immediately.
But Randi did not judge or condescend, she opened her heart and welcomed us with open arms. She is one of the nicest, most caring, kindhearted people that I have ever encountered. She lifted a tremendous burden from our shoulders with such grace that it seemed as easy and natural as can be. My husband and I felt like we could breath again, like we had just been thrown a lifeline. It was such a wonderful feeling, I don't have words to explain the relief.
At the end of her email, Randi asked if there was anything else that she could help us with that would make our lives more comfortable. I decided to speak with my husband, as we are not used to handing off our problems, and both of us felt sort of shy about it, but tremendously relieved at the same time. We discussed the situation and decided that if God opens a door, it was not our place to close it. We had received a miracle and did not want to be ungrateful, and we certainly needed the help.
That decided, I wrote and told Randi that we had no water heater and that we were taking baths by heating hot water in pots on the stove, and that we had no insulation in the walls of our home and that at night we could feel the icy breeze coming right through the old walls of our bedroom. We had managed to purchase the necessary materials to correct the insulation problem, but could not afford to have the work done, both of us unfamiliar with the necessary carpentry and building skills to complete the work ourselves.
Randi, with the help of the community support she rallied on our behalf, managed to buy a new electric water heater for us and also arranged to pay a local contractor to do the insulation work on our home. In the meantime, while all this was taking place, our UPS driver thought that we had gone mad. She was delivering boxes of gifts almost daily, and along with UPS, other items came in the mail. It was a real Christmas, and our best one ever! The girls received beautiful bedding, electric pads, blankets, clothing. Even my husband and I received gifts which was a wonderful treat.
I cannot thank Home Front Hearts and Randi enough for all that they have done for this family but that is not the end of my story. A little while later I received an email from Randi asking if I might be interested in participating in Home Front Hearts' new Pay It Forward paid fellowship. This program would provide me with a means of bringing in some income while at the same time allowing me to support other military families. My goodness what a blessing that was! We were still worried about the short payments from Social Security as we were not making it month-to-month and I needed to find a work-from-home position desperately.
Today I am absolutely thrilled to be working with Randi at Home Front Hearts, helping to bring much needed help to others! There are blue skies in my family's future once again, instead of the storm clouds under which we have dwelt for so long thanks to Randi and my new found employment, and I am able to both work and be at home to attend to my husband.
My greatest hope is that I might be able to give back as much as has been given to me and my family. Thank you, Randi and Home Front Hearts!
