Community Faith Partners

Winter-Spring 2005

--This essay, written by Bridges Grossi as a Drug Court assignment, was read at her Graduation

Hi, my name is Tina and I am a yellow lab. I would be almost 17 years old, but I went to live in heaven with
God 11 years ago. In case you didn't know, all animals do go to heaven. I lived with my human family from
the time that I was 4 weeks old until I got to come live in heaven.

I lived with my human mom, dad and two kids -- one of whom I was born when I was, Sept 26th 1987.

We had a great life we went for walks in the park and to the beach and played a lot. I loved to go with them whenever
they went. My mom even took me to work with her at her office every day for a long time. We all loved each other very much.

But three years later things started to get a little strange at our house. We didn't eat on time, we didn't go to the park much, and

there was a lot of yelling in the house. Then a bunch of strange people started coming in and out of our house. I did not really like
them. I tried to warn my mom that this worried me, but she didn't listen. My human brother & sister also tried to warn her that after
the strange people left she was different, not acting like mom anymore. The people started coming more often. We started getting
new house after new house. I couldn't even count them all. My sister was very sad and my brother one day just left. I never saw him
again. Some time went by. Day after day the same things went on. We were mov-ing again. I could tell by the boxes that were
packed. It was dark in the house because the lights had been turned off again.

My mom and dad packed up the truck with some boxes and my sister and told me to stay and be a good girl. They didn't come

back that night. I was so glad to see my mom late the next day I jumped up on her. "I want to go mom!" "Lets go I'm ready." She
reached down and patted me on my head and said, "Stay and be a good girl, mommy will be back soon." I waited for a day or so for
her to come back, and all of a sudden I heard a noise, it was mommy's friend "Yan." She will take me to my family and our new
house. That didn't happen either, but she stayed with me. She used our phone. We always had a phone. The next thing I know the
house was full of those people I didn't like. I laid down and decided just to wait for my mom. I was woken up by a loud noise, it was
the cops with flashlights. I did not care for them at all mom trained me not to. You can guess what happened next, yep we all went to
jail, me to dog jail, everyone else to a different jail. Three days later a nice lady gave me a shot that made me very sleepy, the next
thing I know I was in heaven.

God said he needed to talk to me the other day. He wanted to tell me that he had some words to tell me about my human mom.

The first thing is that my mom loved me very much and that she was sorry that she didn't get back in time to take me to our new
house. God said "she was sick, very sick." He also can see everything all over all the time so this is his update on mom. Mom is
working very hard to try to get better, day by day. She has new friends now that help her to get better. She still loves people and
animals very much and tires to help whenever she can. Most of all, mom now, loves mom.

Just the other day she went to a different "dog jail" and helped with the animals. She cleaned their cages and all of the other

hand work that goes into running a place like that. It was very hard for her, because some of the dogs were sad some were angry, but
she just shared a little of her love and understanding with them and got through it. At some points during the day she wanted to cry
and she fought all the tears and kept working. The place where my mom helped needs lots of people because the "shot lady" is not at
that jail. They keep all the animals so that maybe they can get new families. My mom after she was done cleaning and feeding,
shared the wonderful love she has for me with the other dogs. She played with them and even brushed this one that needed his hair
comb. All this news made me very happy. This experience touched my mom so much that

I think she will be going back from time to

time to help out with the hard work and share the love that God has instilled in her with all the animals that need new families.

In conclusion all I want to say is keep up the good work mom and continue to share goodness wherever you go, God likes that,

and so will you. I'm looking forward to seeing you someday here in heaven so we can play together again. Things are really nice
here mom. You'll love it. Can't wait to see you.

Love, Tina (5/11/04)

Tina's Story (What Drugs Will Do)

Is Ping-Pong Good Exercise, or Just Good Fellowship?

In our previous Faith Partners newsletter, we asked if anyone had
"a serviceable ping-pong table" which they could donate for use at
our Friday Night Fellowship. Sure enough, someone called.

But, what a table! This table (pictured here undergoing some

rigorous testing) is hand made and has a mahogany top, in excellent
condition. Thanks, Bus and Ruth Reniff, for providing us with the
classiest ping-pong table in Tompkins County! (We're sure of it.)