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Would You Help Resettle Thousands of Displaced People?

What if, suddenly, thousands of people lost their homes and needed a new place to live?  Would you ignore their plight? Or would you pitch in and help them? Here's an example of one community that did a fabulous job of resettling thousands of displaced people in fairly short order.

The group of people in this incident lost their homes due to their religious beliefs, which did not square with the views of elite of the community that they lived in.  Community leadership sent out a survey to all of the residents asking how they felt about a particular religious issue. Secretly, however the reason for asking the question resulted in the eviction of all the residents who answered in opposition to how the community elite felt about the issue. Immediately all of these people were kicked out of their homes and their community and never allowed to return. They were compelled to leave all of their possessions behind.

I've never lost a home, but I can imagine it would be a devastating experience. But, even then, losing a home would likely not mean losing everything in it as well--but that happened to the people in this story.  Many people who lose homes today, one family at a time, have a hard time finding a new place to live. But in this story, hundreds or perhaps thousands of the displaced people were all assimilated by another community, known as the people of Ammon.

The account of the story says
And ...after they had found out the minds of all the people, those who were in favor of the words which had been spoken by Alma and his brethren were cast out of the land; and they were amany; and they came over also into the land of Jershon.

 And [they] did minister unto them.

 Now the people of the Zoramites were angry with the apeople of Ammon who were in Jershon, and ... sent over unto the people of Ammon desiring them that they should cast out of their land all those who came over from them into their land.

And now the people of Ammon did not fear their words; therefore they did not cast them out, but they did receive all the poor of the Zoramites that came over unto them; and they did anourish them, and did clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance; and they did administer unto them according to their wants.
They didn't just put them altogether in a camp and check on them from time to time.  They administered to them according to their wants. And they gave them "lands for their inheritance"--that they could keep in perpetuity. 

Can you imagine the logistics of such an endeavor? Yet it seems, from the account, that it was not a difficult thing for the people of Ammon to find places for all of the displaced people to live, along with replacing much of what they had lost, including extra clothing and food.

Would you be prepared to help someone out in a situation like that?

Comments

  1. Janus Daniels12/28/2011 09:47:00 AM

    "... clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance; and they did administer unto them according to their wants..."
    A heartwarming record of Mormon communist traditions, like the notorious red suit Santa Clause. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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