This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including yours.

Send them to Our American Stories.com.

They're some of our favorites, and man, they just keep coming.

Up next, we have a piece from one of our regular contributors, Stephen Rossiniak.

This piece was published in his local newspaper.

The story is entitled Lessons from Whoville.

It's about a devastating flash flood that severely damaged Stephen's church and the

surprising response from the community.

Stephen asked the director of music at the Packenac Community Church, Daniel Mullins,

to read the story for us.

Here's Daniel.

It was an image that I just couldn't shake.

The residents of Huville had come together on that Christmas morning, knowing full well that

overnight the Grinch had absconded with their gifts, but still they gathered as a community

in faith and hope and love, all the while choosing to look beyond the previous night's

somber circumstances, focusing instead on the present, focusing on what needed to be done,

and most importantly, focusing on everything

that truly mattered.

I couldn't help but notice the similarities between Dr. Seuss' imaginary morning in the book

How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the real-life morning at the Packanac Community Church, where just 14

hours earlier, a sudden flash flood had triggered unbelievably powerful waves of dirt-filled

water, containing copious amounts of mulch, leaves, and logs to come crashing through the church's

...