St. Athanasius Academy

Online Communities

Yesterday I got a glimpse at just how powerful online communities can be. I'm a member of , a community of (primarily) Catholic homeschoolers who try to homeschool using Charlotte Mason's philosophy -- with a bit of unschooling and classical thrown into the mix. I asked this community to please remember my sister in their prayers -- she had been hit by a van while walking across the street and she was in stable condition but unconscious and we won't know the extent of the brain damage until the swelling goes down, in a few days. Added to this was the problem that I am in South Carolina and she is in San Francisco. A bit of a distance! So the worry factor was quite high. In addition, my mother (who lives north of SF in Napa) doesn't drive and didn't know whether she could get down to see Anne, etc.

Well, not only did I receive an outpouring of commitments to pray -- I had one member offer to drive at least 30 minutes to pickup mom and then make the 1 to 1-1/2 hour trip to SF to bring her to the hospital. And this from a woman that doesn't know me except through our online connection.....

And these people do this kind of thing all the time.

Prayer requests and offers of prayers, dedication of Adoration hours or rosaries are always being posted. Offers of help are always being posted. When one member was evacuated to NY due to Hurricane Katrina, a bunch of us set up an Amazon link and bought books for her daughters, as they had lost everything.....

Gift certificates, books, prayers, rides, whatever is needed -- this online community helps. I'm proud to be a member of such a lovely and loving community that would do this for, basically, perfect strangers. But then, I guess we're not perfect strangers. We know all about their kids, their spouses, their health issues and their families. We know about people that live in the same state, and those on ad ifferent continent -- last night, I was swapping library recommendations with a woman in Australia!