Money in mail comes with message from God

BARRY HARCOURT/Southland Times

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN : Mossburn's Jim Guyton is one of an estimated 60 post office box holders in the town who received a $10 note and an anonymous letter encouraging him to contact God on Friday.

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Dollars from heaven have dropped into dozens of Mossburn post office boxes in what has been labelled as an amazing act of kindness.

Others are calling it a religious recruitment drive.

Residents said up to 60 post office box holders in the small Northern Southland town received $10 in the mail complete with a letter encouraging them to contact God on Friday.

The letter asks readers to accept the cash gift or use it for someone in need.

"Please consider these words from God," says the letter, which is signed by "caring local friends" .

The identity of those caring friends was unknown by Mossburn locals or religious leaders spoken to by The Southland Times yesterday.

One of the letter's recipients said the gesture was an amazing act of kindness.

"This is a time when people are struggling to make ends meet so if they care enough to put money in an envelope and send it to people they might not know it shows they have got a generous heart, and that's uncommon today," he said.

Father Gerard Fitzgibbon, the Catholic parish priest for Mossburn, Lumsden and Te Anau, said he thought it might be an attempt to get more people in the town involved in the church.

"I hope it does some good but people might wonder about religion if this is the way they go about it," he said.

Mossburn, like many other rural Southland towns, was struggling to get people into church, he said.

Mossburn Community Area Committee chairman Jim Guyton said he had also received one of the letters and $10 cash, which he would give to Plunket.

"I don't know if it's going to be a weekly occurrence ... next time it might be $20."

Another recipient said the money remained unspent on her kitchen table and she was unsure what would happen to it.

"I think it's pretty random. If they think this is the best way to spread the word then good on them," she said.