OCR Text |
Show 1¥J2, page J :1y own news is sadde:ning. 1'1y mother, Ingrid Warburton, died on October 4th in a lovely rest home in Dove Creek, near Cortez, Colorado. She had been living in Cortez for the past 8 years, but her health was not good, and when she became unable to care for herself too well it became necessary to move her to the rest home, which she liked very much. rtr sister Helen came from Clearwater, Florida, to stay with her a few weeks, and was with her when she died - at the ~e of 90. Ny neice Sandra and my brother Chris came from Clearwater and Long Island, New York, respectively, and our little family were all together again for the first time in 8 years. Nother was buried in the beautifullykept Cortez cemetery. Please pray for the repose of her soul - and for her children ~nd grandchild. And now I am going to write about something different from my usual type of subject. Nissionaries find, once they get into the field, that there are many more demands upon them than the obvious one of assisting in spreading the Good News and helping to bring souls to Christ. Like many others, I have assisted at the birth of babies, provided first aid for injuries, driven the sick to hospitals, prepared the bodies of children and adults for burial in the little cemetery at St Christopher's I\'lission, driven with phone messages to Navajo homes and hogans, helped haul cars out of sand, mud and snow, etc., etc. Well, as missionaries, it's all part of the job. But there is something else that causes no little horror and much distress to missionaries who are also animal lovers (and, frankly, I find it impossible to understand how anyone calling himself a Christian could be anything else), and that is the all-too-frequent sight of indifference to and abuse of animals. True, that goes on everywhere, alas, but every mission and trading post is the dumping ground of unwanted, ~1lJ~n tly half-starved, animals, including kittens and puppies not really old enough to leave their mothers. Those of us who ~are deeply about "all creatures great and small" are under considerable stress, as we feel we must do something to help them. Obviously, most of the people who care about animals already have one or two they have adopted, so the only options are to try to get them to an animal shelter (160 miles away is the nearest!) or to a kind vetinarian, who will try to find homes for them, and, failing that, will put them to sleep. The third option is, for us, out of the question: forget about them and leave them to die of hun-ger and thirst. So . now I am going to do two things. One is to beg all you good Chris-tian people to contact your local humane societies and become informed of the enormities committed upon God's creatures, and cooperate with them in urging legislation to prevent animal exploitation and abuse - and believe me abuse covers a multitude of abominable tortures inflicted upon animals that should make your blood run cold. Secondly, I'm writing the story of "Tuppence", as a point of contact with all abused animals. I 'm driving to ¥J()ab this day, to take this Hessage to the printers and to take Tuppence and another little dog whose owner can't take care of her to the good Dr Hoffman of the Spanish Valley Animal Clinic. \iha t will happen to them I Y~YlOw not, but I do know that they will be very kindly treated. I cannot keep1he~because I already have 2 dogs and 2 cats. The Story of Tuppence ., 14y leg was broken some time ago. It hurt a lot, and people laughed at me when I tried to move around. Then someone tied a knotted string tight around my other leg. I t hurt too - and they laughed and ran away. The other dogs fought for the bits of food that were thrown to them, but I couldn ' t get near enough even to fight, and of course I couldn't catch anything to ea t • So I was very hungr>,~ Then I guess they got tired of having me around and I was put in to a pickup truck and taken to a place where they got water, and they dumped me out of the car. I found a place to lie down - near a car, so I could cral'll under it if anyone came to hurt me some more. Then someone did come by, picked me up quickly and took me to where there was a big bowl of good food, and then I felt the biting string taken away. Some stuff with a funny smell came out of the holes in my leg made by the knots in the string, and the human washed them and put sOwe other |