Yesterday a lady in my town phoned and said the God Squad was in town. These are a group of Christians of every denomination who get together and come to our town from Michigan to help out anyone who needs it. They started coming after Katrina and have come every year since. They stay at the fire station in town where they eat and sleep between their good deeds.They have two vans and bring supplies and tools with them. They have erected playground equipment at a church and a school, among other things.

Now I've been trying for weeks--no, months--to pay someone to come help clean up my yard. Winter would have been the best time, while the trees were bare and the undergrowth not so bad. Well, it didn't happen. But yesterday I went to the fire station and found the God squad eating lunch, and pled my case. They said they would help. And this is the nicest thing--most of the Squad were teens who are spending their spring break time coming to Mississippi to help others. That is teriffic!

Five of the Squad followed me home. Tim went out back with a saw and a hatchet to cut down two sweet gum saplings and a mimosa bush. (Sweet gum trees have roots like tentacles.) He had to wade through greening up bushes and thorns to cut them down--and one of the sweet gums had grown from a sapling into a small tree. Lot of chopping, bless his heart.

Then Tim and Tom put fire ant poison on three nests in the backyard, and with Luke helping, knocked down some wasps' nests on the carport. Hope and Tasha raked up pine cones out front and picked up fallen limbs and debris off one end of the driveway. Tim cut down an unsightly dead cactus by the house, and we burned it all. They stayed till the fire was dying down and before leaving, took a photo of us all together. I love young people, they are precious and fine. I hope the world we leave them won't be such a complete mess. They don't deserve that.

PS After writing that I have to ask--why do people have to come from Michigan to do good deeds in Mississippi? Why don't the churches and teens in Mississippi do that??

susil