I saw a picture, under it was a sentence asking for “likes” for a page called “Right out of the Trailer Park” and it pictured a very rough looking woman who was dressed in a ridiculous outfit. I have heard comedians making fun of trailer park living, “cheap” people, someone a person doesn’t like or who act rude or are obnoxious in any way, are called “trailer park trash”.
Can I say that I know of persons who have been raised in the lap of luxury, and are both rude and obnoxious, being rude and obnoxious are a personality trait that doesn’t have anything to do with where you live, right?
Yes of course I am right!
I now live in a beautiful home on a gorgeous piece of property that is debt free, thanks be to God for giving me favor but let me go back a few years.
I was born to parents who were good, sincere, God-fearing, loving, ministers of the Word of God and serving people as pastor and evangelist who didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
When I was born, the home I was taken to, was a back room of a church fellowship hall where they lived in courtesy of the church they were working for at the time.
When I was nine-months old they felt “the call” to go and evangelize, that is to preach, sing and generally minister to any church that would have them… and the only place we had to live, to keep from being housed in back rooms or spare bedrooms of congregants, was a small “Silver Stream” trailer which had no bathroom.
My dad hooked that trailer up in many small trailer parks in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
When I was four years of age that trailer was parked in a place that was near a water treatment plant and we were there for more than six weeks. If you live in Atlanta and have to travel down Atlanta Road to Bolton Road where the water treatment plant is you know what the smell is like, not pretty and the problem was that my mother was very pregnant with my brother, so the smell only added to her reasons to be nauseous.
There was a Coca-Cola machine at the front of the park and the Cokes in it were ice cold, a blessing on a hot day for my mother, but as soon as she drank it, up it came… in the slop jar, which my dad faithfully emptied of all the waste of the family.
When I was ten my dad took a church, which had been abandoned by the current pastor and taking most of the congregation with him left a huge amount of debt on that big brick church on the corner of Dodd’s Avenue in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The church couldn’t afford a parsonage, so daddy purchased a sixteen-foot Airstream, the up-grade was that this one had a small bathroom, nice since now my mother was pregnant with my baby sister, and instead of being in a trailer park we were backed up to the church and he was able to hook into the church water supply, so we had running water.
Funny thing is that my brother nor I ever felt poor…
we never had that mentality, my parents made it an adventure and we were doing it for the greater good of the church, for the people who couldn’t afford the church payments without cooking dinners to sell every Sunday to raise money.
I wonder if any of those people were ever thankful for what my parents did for them?
Not that it matters because their aim was to please God, not man…
as a kid I can’t say I shared their enthusiasm.
I think that my brother, sister, and I have turned out rather well. We are all upstanding citizens that are neither rude, nor obnoxious, we are registered voters, and the only time we look rough is when we wake up in the morning, speaking only for myself now.
There is nothing wrong with providing your family a place to live in a place where you can afford to live and if that is a trailer park then good for you!
Every single time I hear one of those wise cracks or see one of those pictures I feel affronted,
I am tired of hearing this made fun of and put down.
Let me ask you to be kind to every person you meet even if they are not kind to you, you don’t know what life at home is for them and your smile might just be the only one they see all day.
If you deem yourself a Christian, a child of God, someone who emulates Him and His goodness, then remember this:
1 John 4: 7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
God is love,
and if He came to earth again instead of a stable in Bethlehem
He might just be born and raised in your local trailer park!
Harolene.com 
GOD BLESSED YOU AND ALL THE FAMILY . THE AFTER ALL SHINED BRIGHTELY I LOVE YOU WE SHOULD WRITE A BOOK AN SIMILAR THINGS IN OUR LIFE
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Dear Harolene
Thank you very much for this post. I think it is lovely.
I have surveyed as a building surveyor what I imagine might the equivalent of trailer parks in the UK – we might call them mobile homes, although once placed they do no normally move! I have found them pleasant places, with decent people, and well kept on the whole.
I have stayed in one whilst on holiday with my parents and once with my wife and her French godson. They were restricted for holiday use, but nevertheless comfortable.
If God came to earth again he might be born as you say. Or perhaps in a small terraced house. And live among the commoners, the ordinary people.
I was born and live that way, and I like those around me so your comments make perfect sense.
And I look rather rough at the moment and have done so for a while as I have a facial palsy and longish hair due to the lockdowns. My wife might cut my hair, but as she can’t cut bread straight I am not too keen!!
Kind regards
Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
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How wonderful to hear from you kind Sir. You can’t possibly know how happy I am to meet you. I was the family barber for many years myself so I pray your wife learns to cut bread so you can get a good hair cut! 😂❤️🙏😇 Harolene
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You have some precious memories there. Kinda take me there with you, cuz I FEEL it too.
If I could post anymore, I keep thinking lately about posting (again) about “making do” and little resources with big faith. Especially regarding meals.
I grew up hearing that my grandmother would rather have a bowlful too much than a spoonful too little. (I never actually heard my grandmother use those words, but they were used of her… so make of that what you want.) But it represents a country/simple way of life/philosophy to which my family, our friends, the church, and really all of society (certainly those good conservative types among us) aspired. There would be embarrassment at putting on and coming up even a little short. What if an uninvited or unexpected guest showed up?
Of course, this manages to stretch our waistlines more than anything. But we always had plenty, and then some.
But few are the times, yet precious as I reflect on them, and I mean when I really meditate, when we thought we were running out only to discover the jar never quite ran empty or the water had become wine. There is some mysterious blessing in watching the ends coming together, but as you do the math you see they are not going to meet, and yet suddenly they do… and when this happens again and again and again.
I wonder if you ever saw that old Kevin Costner movie called FANDANGO. It’s sad, funny, and all that of course. Follows a group of college kids as they graduate UT in Austin back in the early 70s only to discover they have been drafted and will be shipping out to Vietnam. They suddenly come face to face with their mortality and go on this little adventure across Texas to dig up a buried bottle of booze across the border in Old Mex.
Well, I cant describe all the adventures, but mostly they are heartwarming in some ironic sense. But near the end of the movie, they throw a wedding just across the border. They still have their Tuxedos from the Graduation celebrations, but other than that, they have no money and no resources. Even the bride is back in Dallas, and they have to find a way to get her to the wedding.
So, the play a variation on the old child story, STONE SOUP. It’s completely dishonest and manipulative, of course, but they basically trick all the locals into providing everything they need to throw a big party and have a wedding.
Well, except for the manipulations – which are downplayed as harmless in the film – the whole exchange is all but miraculous. And it reminds me of those times when I too have managed in complete humility and need to rely on God for his mysterious providence over and beyond my strength, my hording, my finances, and my pride.
Your post brings all this stuff into focus for me.
I realize that I can, and sometimes might be, jealous of the poor… the poor in Christ anyway. The poor, says James, are rich in faith. They have something to share with those of us who have so much. Something we NEED and dont know it. Maybe this is the reason for that trippy line in Mary’s prayer in Luke 1:53. I came into this world naked, helpless, and not even speaking the language. I will leave it just as helpless. O… to be loved at both ends of life and all through the middle too. We are not islands unto ourselves, nor captains of our fate, though we like to put that in the brochures. None of this excuses sloth or stupidity, but it casts everything into an entirely OTHER light, that is for sure.
Thanx for posting
Hey… by the way… have you ever discovered Michael Cox’s Street Ministry blog. He is a street minister in Seattle, WA who posts maybe 2 or 4 times a month, and usually very short posts. But he NEVER misses. His stuff always hits the mark, and inspires.
I figure I should tip off you and your readers….
God bless…
X
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Thank you for your comment Agent ‼️ I give away and God knows that is a reward in itself. I remember a lady pressing 2.25 into my 9 year old hand and told me to use it for school lunch that week. If I can make someone else feel the utter happiness that Two dollars and twenty-five cents gave me that is a reward. God is good. He supplies all my needs according to HIS riches in Glory by Christ Jesus. Amen. 🙏❤️😇
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