Karen Our Community Light

Jesus taught:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
~ Matthew 22: 39

 

We moved house this week… it’s our ninth move in almost 30 years of marriage. We stayed at our last rented home much too long – 10 years, simply because we loved the Waterfall 3 community.

I’m sure you can all relate.

We’ve had neighbours with the naughty kids, and the loud teenagers and the frustrating animals and noisy dogs. There have been times when we are the neighbours with the naughty kids, loud teenagers and noisy naughty dogs. *Smile*

We’ve mostly lived happily in very safe and secure neighbourhoods, with only a couple of incidents, until we moved to Peacevale in 2006. In the short period of a year, we had a grass fire almost reach our house, melting the plastic water pipes from the borehole and water tank, leaving us without water on tap for more than a week. The garage roof leaked all over our business stock, water came up through the ceramic floor tiles soaking the boxes of stock we had moved from the garage, and we had a weird kitchen fire that filled the house with smoke, making the walls grey with soot.

Our neighbour had seven dogs, one was a wolf with different colour eyes, so we were really safe… until he moved with his dogs.

Then we had a burglary… and another… and an armed robbery when Jess and I were home alone and we were held at gunpoint and tied up. I have to really think about it to remember it now, and what I remember most was feeling very protected and blessed.

Our greatest stress was the affect it was on Jess who was only eleven at the time, and we really endeavoured to ensure that she healed and recovered from the incident.

Just a couple of months later when our only family car was stolen, filled with a month’s groceries, loaned tools from a friend and a full petrol tank… with a number of other incidents that occurred interspersed with those that I’ve shared, Dave’s usual optimism failed, which proved to be my undoing… and we decided we needed to move. *Smile*

It took a year to find a home we could afford to accommodate our family, and I will always be grateful for the wonderful neighbourhood that Waterfall 3, has always proven to be, with just a few minor incidents with neighbours. *Grin*

We always felt safe, even when Dave was away for short or long periods, and even when Jess and I were home alone for 6 weeks at one particular time.

This is mostly due to our wonderful neighbourhood watch, who serve our community with such diligence, and in particular a very special person, Karen, who shines as a very special example of what it means to be a neighbour, by how diligently she serves our entire neighbourhood.

Karen is warm and funny… unique and special, engaging and thoughtful… and simply selfless in her service of her neighbours, no matter what she is called to do… Beat at grass fires, comfort traumatized victims, and find the homeless a safe haven. Patrol the neighbourhood at all hours of the night and day, take phone calls for a list of queries, manage the groups… and she even organises and hosts the biggest bonfire event that I know of. *Smile*

Even though Karen is a busy wife and mother, and self-employed working woman, she performs her duties with diligence and grace, and everyone I know, who knows Karen admires and respects her.

Thank-you Karen for being an exemplary Woman of Worth, a diligent and selfless neighbour, and a shining light in our community. *Smile*

I’m so grateful and appreciative of all you do, that… that I know… and that… that I don’t. And I am so happy that we have only moved ‘down the road and up the hill!”. *Grin*

Lots of love, and a Happy Merry Christmas
Mands

PS… because I have been packing to move for three months, and wasn’t even close to being packed when we moved, I asked Jess to make a Christmas Table Runner and Christmas Bead Ornaments to go with my little plants for Karen… and I’m so happy they match Karen’s very beautiful and Christmas decorated home, because she really loves Christmas. *Smile* Thank-you Jess *BIG Mwah*

 

#Wow
#Grateful  

#LightTheWorld     

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