Comment by David McKay on 10th mo. 15, 2016 at 11:13am

What makes you think that including you in their community might be a burden?

Comment by Howard Brod on 10th mo. 22, 2016 at 8:20pm

We are a small meeting with two infirmed Friends who are unable to drive to meeting.  Most all Friends at our meeting have 30 to 45 minutes to drive to reach the meetinghouse already.  So, providing this assistance has been a challenge.

However, upon these two infirmed Friends request, we have been able to arrange transportation for them.  And it has been a joy for those of us who provide this transportation - even though most of us must go quite out of our way to do so.

We had an entire Meeting for Business to discern how we could help these Friends (two different Meetings for Business - since the two requests were a year apart).  As an aside, as a meeting we have chosen to take these types of things to our Meeting for Business for discernment.  It is community-building to do so, and innovative solutions arise amidst the power of the whole community being guided by the Spirit.  Once the discernment is in place on how to proceed, it is handed over to our Care and Community committee to administer the decision of the whole meeting.  Here's what we discerned at our Meeting for Business:

1. Since transporting these Friends would be out of our normal route to meeting, causing an already long ride to meeting to be even longer, our goal would be that the transporters would only need to do so once every three months on a regular schedule. 
2. Our goal would be to transport the infirmed Friends to meeting as often as they wanted to come (each Sunday, two Sundays a month, three Sundays a month, or all four/five Sundays each month).
3. The first two decisions would determine how many Friends we would need to transport the infirmed Friend.

The earliest Friend who wanted assistance desires to come (by choice) to meeting three times per month (four times when there is a fifth Sunday in the month.  This means 10 different Friends transport her every three months.

The second Friend who wanted assistance desires to come (by choice) each and every Sunday.  Again, because our meeting is quite small and travel to it in itself is time-consuming, we have only been able to provide transportation every fourth Sunday (when we have potluck).  This requires 3 different Friends to transport her routinely (each taking a turn once every three months).  We are now hoping that we can expand her participation at meeting to the second Sunday, as well, if way opens.  We continue to hold this goal in the Light at each Meeting for Business. We shall see if indeed way eventually opens.

As a meeting, it occurred to us that Friends are always looking for opportunities for peace and social actions in the community/city we live in.  Yet, often, these opportunities are right under our noses - within our own meetings.  And if we can't reach out to those among us, we certainly will not be able to reach out to strangers in need.

So, my advice Salamah is to reach out to your meeting for transportation.  Even share with them this comment of mine - if it will provide them some ideas of how to go about helping you get to meeting.

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