My church has 3 or 4 requests per week from people who say they are stranded or in some emergency but when they are asked for some reference say from their home church they are unable to provide one name or number. The truth is there are many, many scam artists who go from church to church asking for money....We are not hard hearted but have grown wise....
I work in a church and while we use our own judgement sometimes we mostly send them to a clearing house type charity that we donate to.