Yesterday David, Milo and I flew off of HWY 7 South into Steubenville, Ohio. Beautiful office buildings and monumentous churches showed a profitable past but the homes and people living there told a different story altogether. We made a quick detour to run into the public library where I jumped onto a computer to try to find a host for the night. After about 20 minutes of searching with no results, I figured it would be better to leave the library and try to bike out of town before dark. In a last ditch effort I asked the Librarian; Helen if there was some place nearby to pitch a tent for the night. Her eyes went wide. Sleep OUTSIDE? In a tent? "This is a bad neighborhood" she whispered to me so as not to offend the locals. She asked me to wait while she gave her husband a call to ask if he knew of something, so thoughtful. Helen didn't just have any place for us to stay, she had her husband Rick drive down 19 miles in his pickup truck to hull David, Milo and me up to the very top of the County to their home where they served us a delicious pizza dinner complete with beer, food for Milo, a bed to sleep in and the next morning, breakfast fit for a king. Helen drove us back to the library with her this morning and insisted on taking us an extra 3 miles South before returning to work.
Steubenville is a collection of down and out people from all over the County and Country. We were told that because there is some public housing in town the homeless come in flocks searching for better possibilities. Upon arriving in Steubenville they are instructed to get a library card. They come into the library to meet Helen the Librarian/Social Worker and spend the bulk of their days on the computer or reading, keeping warm and dry and staying out of trouble.
We have met so many Helens along the way. Selfless, generous, loving people. The US foreign policy is NO reflection of the people living in the United States, they are truly some of finest people in the world. We really can't say enough about how kind, compassionate and generous every person we have met along the way has been. We could learn a lot about compassion and selflessness from
Lots of Love, H xoxo