AA on Andros!

Well surprise surprise - two blog entries in two days - this is a record!
With Ginni away I just had to tell someone about my morning and today you, my blog readers, are the lucky ones.

This morning is rainy and overcast but, true to form, our local homeless man limped his way up the driveway for his daily sandwich. I had given him a Maryknoll magazine we had for something to read and he sat on the porch watching the rain and eating when a car pulled up.

I went out to meet whoever it was to find it was Ernie - an employee at the AUTEC Navy Base. He had a bahamian man with him and a 3-ring binder. It turns out that Ernie is active in the Alcoholic Anonymous group at AUTEC and he'd been coming off-base to meet with this man who had just started his road to sobriety. They had been meeting in a park, then in a local bahamian home, but today the home wasn't available, and with the rain, neither was the park and he hoped he could meet on the porch.

I told them they were always welcome to come here to have the meeting, but with my other friend eating his sandwich I thought they needed more privacy than this area and invited them into the rectory to use the screen porch. They gladly accepted and spent a little over an hour there.

When they were done I made a point of telling them that if they EVER needed a place to host an AA meeting for the Bahamians we would be very open to being a place they could meet. Ernie jumped at the offer and said, "OK, how about Saturday's at 9:30". So it looks like we are now blessed to have the first and only AA meeting on Andros! I couldn't be happier.

Then, Ernie looks at our homeless friend and invites him to come too! Now this fellow has a definite issue with rum and drugs and when he asked what AA was I explained that it was a meeting for people who had problems with rum and a way to help stay sober. He actually said, "You know, I could use dat Deac" and Ernie laughs (turns out Ernie knows him only too well).

Drugs and alcohol are a major problem in the Bahamas and on an island like Andros there are literally no resources to address the issue. If the established AA group on the Navy Base really is willing to come off base and conduct a Saturday morning AA meeting at our church it would be a great beginning to something that could make a very real difference.

Keep this one in your prayers - till next time.