Dino Livanidis
writes:
I am going to
REVEAL Something that no one ever before even my wife knows what I'm about to tell you.
Other than property investment, there is a soft part of me that I love
so much.
As a boy I
always had a soft spot for helping people and never asked for anything
in return, it actually gave me happiness seeing people happy for the
help I would give.
I was never the talkative person but as everyone said when ever I did
day something it was worth listening to.
When I started
out my working life as a kid I became a motor mechanic apprentice and
for fun I used to drive the streets looking for people broken down and
helping them out for no charge. When coming from the nightclubs late
at night I would watch "The Bible", Ten Commandments", "Jesus",
"Noah's Ark" and my favorite till today is the "The Miracle Of Saint
Bernadette".
My dreams would
be me having the power to cast away demons and walking into hospitals
or along the street and if I had seen a sick person I could say a prayer
to make them better.
Even today if I really want something so bad, I would pray for it for
days and my blessing would be answered and if it didn't it always
would eventually come to pass.
Why am I
telling you this....Many people still think that when I send emails
and offer help they think "Ok, what's the catch?"
When I offer help I really do mean it, I don't need anymore money than
I have
so if I can help you, please let me.
One of my
personal clients Stephanie had sent me the great email in relation to
helping the people that need it most, and if we could all do the same
thing to people that need help, how the world would change.
In September
1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75
cents in my pocket. Their father was gone.
The boys ranged from three months to
seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been
much more than a presence they feared.
Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they
would
scramble to hide under their
beds. He did manage to
leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had
decided to leave, there would be no more beatings,
but!....no food either.
If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at
that
time, I certainly knew
nothing about it.
I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on
my
best homemade dress, loaded
them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove
off to find a job!
The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in
our
small town. No luck.
The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while
I
tried to convince whomever
would listen that I was willing to learn or
do
anything. I had to have a job.
Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out
of town,
was an old Root Beer Barrel
drive-in that had been converted to a truck
stop. It was called the Big
Wheel.
An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of
the
window from time to time at
all those kids.
She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until
seven in
the morning. She paid 65
cents an hour, and I could start that night.
I raced home and called the teenager down the street that
baby-sat for
people. I bargained with her
to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could
arrive with her pyjamas on and the kids would already be
asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we
made a deal.
That night when the little
ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all
thanked God for finding Mommy
a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.
When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and
sent her
home with one dollar of my tip
money-- fully half of what I averaged
every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meagre
wage.
The tires on the old Chevy
had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I
had to fill them with air on the way to work and
again every morning before I
could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home
and
found four tires in the back
seat. New tires! There was no note, no
nothing, just those
beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up
residence in Indiana? I
wondered.
I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for
his
mounting the new tires, I
would clean up his office. I remember it
took me a lot longer to scrub
his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't
enough.
Christmas was coming and I
knew there would be no money for toys for
the kids.
I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting
some old
toys. Then hid them in the
basement so there would be something for
Santa to deliver on Christmas
morning.
clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of
patches on
the boys pants and soon they
would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the
Big
Wheel. These were the
truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state
trooper named Joe.
A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion
and were
dropping nickels in the
pinball machine.
The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee
hours of
the morning and then left to
get home before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas
morning, to my amazement, my
old battered Chevy was filled full to the
top with boxes of all shapes
and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and
kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I
pulled off the lid of the top box.
Inside was whole case of little blue
jeans, sizes 2-10!
I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with
the jeans.
Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy
and nuts
and bananas and bags of
groceries. There was an enormous ham for
baking, and canned vegetables
and potatoes. There was pudding and
Jell-O and cookies, pie
filling and flour. There was a whole bag of
laundry supplies and cleaning
items.
And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on
the
most amazing Christmas Day of
my life, I was sobbing with gratitude.
And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones
that
precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And
they all
hung out at the Big Wheel
truck stop....
THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe
that God only gives three answers to
prayer:
1. "Yes!"
2. "Not yet."
3. "I have something better in
mind."
God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar.
You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is
getting ready
to bless you in a way that
you cannot imagine.
This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we
receive.
There is no cost but a lot of
rewards.
Let's continue to pray for one another. Here is the prayer:....
Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email
buddies
reading this right now. Show
them a new revelation of Your love and
power................ Amen.
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God Bless You And Your Family
Mr. Dino F Livanidis
PS- If you need some sort of assistance in some way that I can
help you, please email me personally
dino@npis.com.au
www.npis.com.au
Links
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