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WITandWISDOM(tm) - October 3, 2006 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: May you live all the days of your life. - Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Source: Molly's Quotes of the Day, mailto:molly.rhea@gmail.com?subject=Subscribe_Quotes_of_the_Day ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: Make A Difference Day is the fourth Saturday of each October. For more information visit: http://makeadifferenceday.com Burlington, North Carolina Jen Loy, 49, didn't have money or insurance — just pain. But when she arrived at the Open Door Dental Clinic of Alamance County on Make A Difference Day, no one asked how she would pay for an extraction and three fillings. Dental volunteers just went to work. "I needed the tooth pulled," Loy says. "There wasn't hardly [anything] there. Just pain." Emergency dental care is available to needy adults two nights per week at Open Door. But for Make A Difference Day, organizers expanded, offering basic, preventive and emergency dental care at a two-clay, 30-chair marathon session in a MASH-style setup at a Burlington, N.C., church hall. "Needy folks really have nowhere to go," says Steven Slott, 53, the dentist who established the two-day clinic in his town and sees it as an annual Make A Difference Day event. Slott and 174 other volunteers saw 302 patients, doing $80,000 worth of work total. Many of the needy began lining up each day well before the volunteers arrived at 7:30 am. "So many people are in pain, and they've been living with it for months," Slott says. "This is satisfying because once we see them, they're better." Kim Hammersmith, 24, a second-year student at the University of North Carolina's School of Dentistry, oversaw several gnarly procedures. "Some patients just had teeth rotted to the gum line," she says. "Others have had toothaches for a year — and we just fixed them." Source: USA Weekend, April 21-23, 2006, http://usaweekend.com ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: A young and new lay preacher was asked to lead an evening service at a church he had not visited before. A few days before the service he met a farmer who he knew to be a member of the church he was to visit. The hugely over-weight farmer was apologetic, saying that he would not be at church that evening and what was his sermon text? The preacher told him, and even went through how he was to expound the particular scripture. The farmer was delighted that he had shared it with him and went on his way. The preacher decided that he would attend morning service that Sunday at the church to get a feel for the place and its ambience. As he took his pew he noticed a ladder left against the side of the pulpit. When the service began he was surprised to see that the farmer was the preacher. As he could not get into the pulpit by the narrow door the farmer had to climb the ladder and swing himself over the pulpit side. He then proceeded to preach the same sermon as that prepared by the young preacher. The young man was extremely annoyed after he had put hours of work into his sermon for that evening. When he eventually entered the pulpit that evening, he announced to the congregation, "My text this evening is St John, Chapter 10, verse 1, 'Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber!'" Pulpit Pieces Weekly, http://www.net153.com/best.htm ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: "Karen, do you carry a memento of some sort in that locket of yours?" Yes, it's a lock of my husband's hair. But your husband is still alive. I know, but his hair is gone. Source: The Lame Humor List, http://absoluterobeo.com ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: In Abraham's time, hospitality was extended to whomever needed it -- strangers and acquaintances alike. . . In Autauga County Alabama, relatives of 150 years ago of the late Mrs. Lena Posey built a frame house with hospitality and caution in mind. They were on the main road to Prattville, the county seat, and had many interesting visitors, some of whom were quite interested in the ancestor's two pretty daughters. Not being of trusting nature, the ancestor had the rooms for visitors opening on the front porch, but the stairway to the upstairs and the girl's rooms could only be reached through the ancestor's bedroom. Apparently his strategy was successful as the family "had a good name" from ancient times. Submitted by R P Cly