Reviews and Words of Praise for "Angels and Quilt Pieces"
"Here is a must read for anyone sympathetic with victims of disasters such as Katrina. The book emphasizes the importance of knowing how to help people whose lives have been turned upside down by disaster and are grief stricken with feelings of hopelessness."
Roger Eno, Retired Pastor
“I could not put this one down!”
“This story of one family sponsoring a Katrina Family becomes an amazing experience of empathy as the author shares her thoughts and feelings, learning what it means to ‘be our brother’s keeper’. The author takes us through the challenges and joys of being there for a family that she and her husband came to love. The challenge was, “How can we be responsible TO this family without being totally responsible FOR them.” This family was joined by so many others trying to be a blessing, yet at times the best intentions were not always the most helpful. The author simply shares her perspective of what happened and how it felt to make this journey of a modern day Good Samaritan. This is a must read and a good read. The journey continues and by the grace of God will bring many more blessings to all.”
Henry Schulte, Pastor
St. John Lutheran Church
Boerne, Texas
“I was the sponsor for a Katrina family also. I found myself totally out of my box and felt like I was so inadequate to sponsor the family. The bureaucratic red tape was mind-boggling. After reading the book Angels and Quilt Pieces, I realized I was not alone. The book captured the true and accurate circumstances surrounding the catastrophe within the catastrophe. My hope is that when another catastrophic situation occurs we will be better equipped to handle it. I believe that Stephanie captured the "moments" and the "lives" of the victims and the sponsors who had to deal with it then and now.”
Sharon Tschirhart
BCDE, BCBP, Fellow ABFEI, Diplomate ABFEI
Forensic Behavioral Profiler - Forensic Document Examiner
"Angels and Quilt Pieces- What a modest title hiding a true account of the nature of our country for better and for worse.
Not told by some conniving politician. Not construed by a marketer with only dollar signs in their eyes. Not told by anyone famous. Told by the true descriptions of our Americans. Us. We the people.
What have we need for story when we can be shown reality and let that speak for itself? This true account is from the best heart of what our country has to offer, from the democrat, from the republican, from the religious, from the non-religious! It is so much more than the story of the Katrina disaster and what is so obvious between the lines is as important as the lines.
This true account of how all those various groups of people interacted in that disaster and its aftermath gives us two major areas of consideration: The hope for a true unity in our country through the best that we all have to offer. But also a warning as to the destructive nature of the worst that our various groups have to offer.
This is a humble book without favorites, without prejudice, and with such a deep love for people that unless you are very sick and twisted inside, you will read it, nod your head, shed tears, and feel fuller inside for the true, human love that enters your heart and stirs your mind. For those looking for an example of true Christian love that they hear preached every Sunday, they will find in this book how to live it without preaching it- and so the testimony is far stronger!
This is a book with the power to heal our country, for us all to gain a better respect and appreciation for one another no matter where we come from, what group we belong to, or what economic status we have.
And the most amazing quality of this book is that it is simply the accurate account of our real, everyday people. It is not media hype with an agenda that we all, no matter who we are, are so tired of hearing. This book is our unabashed reality. Please. Everyone should read this and contemplate."
Darryl Markowitz- author of The Faithwalker Series
Anita Porterfield
Boerne Star
Book Editor
Hill Country ‘Angels’ rescue displaced Katrina victims
In September 2005, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans, Stephanie and Randy Ehmen felt compelled to help displaced evacuees who had been sent to San Antonio for temporary asylum. Several churches in the Texas Hill Country united in their efforts to support a shelter to house evacuee families. Each church agreed to provide volunteers to run the camp for a week at a time.
Stephanie and Randy Ehmen were assigned as sponsors of the Thornton family. Stephanie Ehmen recalls their first meeting.
“When we met them the first day that they arrived at the church shelter, the baby, Alonzo, was eight weeks old. He was just three weeks old when Katrina hit. There was Roosevelt and Chantal and five children ages eight weeks to ten years. We were told that first day that when the shelter directors had discovered that Roosevelt and Chantal were not married, they had been informed that, ‘this was a Christian place, and they would have to get married in order to stay.’ We were told that . . . the wedding would be held the next day.”
From the outset, the union of Roosevelt and Chantal was fraught with problems. The Ehmens’ soon discovered that Chantal was an alcoholic who used her food stamps and FEEMA reimbursements for beer instead of buying groceries for the children. Chantal and her new husband Roosevelt, or Turk as his friends called him, were rooted in entirely different socio-economic echelons and not capable of establishing a solid family unit, especially in such traumatic circumstances.
Says Ehmen, “It seemed to us that Roosevelt and Chantal were still in a state of shock from their experiences. The children were very traumatized. Three-year-old Charlie was really out of control and five-year-old Anthonyione would jump into our arms, wrap her arms around our neck and hang on for dear life. We spent a lot of our time with the kids so that the parents could have time to work through their own trauma and emotions.”
While the church sponsors of the displaced Katrina families were obligated to spend one week assisting their appointed refugees in applying for federal assistance, locating other family members who had been separated from them during the evacuation process, and helping with the enormous tasks that lay ahead for these unfortunate victims of one of the most catastrophic disasters in American history, the Ehmens, more that two years after the disaster, continue to be a stable presence in the Thornton family.
“Angels and Quilt Pieces” is as much about Stephanie and Randy Ehmen as it is about the Thornton family whom they sponsored. Written in a diary format, the reader is hooked into the infinite tangles of red tape created by the federal bureaucracy and the ongoing shock and horror that marked the Thornton family forever.
Every so often in this incredible saga, an “angel” would seemingly appear out of nowhere with help that Ehmen characterizes as “pieces of a quilt.”
Writes Ehmen, “The Angels are all the people who have helped us and the Thornton family along the way, through monetary donations, by giving clothing or household items or with their love and support. Each time someone gave them a hug or a smile or a kind word, they gave the family a ‘quilt piece’. Someday we hope that they can put the pieces together and be able to wrap themselves in this imaginary quilt to comfort themselves and know that so many people cared.”
“Angels and Quilt Pieces . . . Our Journey with a Katrina Family,” is one of those rare books that hook the reader from the onset, tells a great story, and has redemptive value. Stephanie and Randy Ehmen made a conscious decision to assist and nourish a family whose cultural differences were polar opposites of their own. Nevertheless, this Bulverde couple plunged right into the core of a situation foreign to anything they had experienced in their own lives in order to bring direction and closure to a family that they would never have known in normal circumstances.
“Angels and Quilt Pieces . . . Our Journey with a Katrina Family, (Eagles Wings Publications, ISBN 1-4196-6990-7, 2007, $ 25.00)” is available through major booksellers and from the Ehmens’ web site, http://eagleswingspublications.com. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book helps support the “Thornton Housing Fund.”
Anita Porterfield is a member of the National Book Critics Circle
March 6, 2008
Angels and Quilt Pieces a must read!
Stephanie Ehmen has eloquently portrayed the struggles
and celebrations of the Thornton family's experiences before, during and
after hurricane Katrina. The book is written in a well-balanced way that
accurately shows the blessings and challenges that come from helping
people in a meaningful way and presents lessons for future responders to
mass catastrophes on personal to bureaucratic levels.
There is a great description of the cultural, economic, and systemic
differences that occur between helper and victim following a mass
catastrophe which can provide us all lessons to learn from. I find it
difficult to imagine anyone reading this work not being moved. I
recommend it for any therapist, particularly those assisting Katrina
families or families coping with other traumatic events or hardships.
John W. Beach, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
COPYRIGHT © 2007 Eagles Wings Publications - All Rights Reserved.