Monday, July 19, 2010

West Virginia: Day 2

Day two here at West Virginia, we had our first actual day of serving, four work crews and two crews together working at a Kids Club. We also had a fun evening of learning about the area and visiting a coal mine museum. But, I'll let other share on this.

Dustin Meeks-
The very first day of the mission trip was one full of surprises Troy true to his word put everyone out of their comfort zone especially himself (kids club+ Troy = hmmm). I was posted to a work project in the nearby town of Belfy, Kentucky. Now if you know me (Dustin+ Work Project = hmmmm?) so I was pretty nervous, but after being lost for half an hour I was greeted with an exciting surprise Fay the elderly woman who’s house we were going to work on was an incredibly nice and adorable person. I was assigned to help her clean out her house full of mementos of her life and her sixty year marriage which was abruptly ended last year with the death of her husband. After only an hour of work in the cool damp basement Fay was a little tired and so we retired upstairs to her affectionately cared for kitchen that reminded me so much of my own Grandma’s kitchen. Being the sweet women that Fay is she quickly set to work making all of the members of my work crew the greatest hot dogs ever. She made a homemade queso and her own special chili and she shared the secret to the perfect chili queso dog (Honey Mustard) who knew. I then proceeded to talk with her for two hours instead of working. So I felt bad that I wasn’t working at our work project but I had a conversation that changed my life. Fay is a collector of things and while my job this week is to help her declutter her home of unused things I have come to appreciate her love for knickknacks and gewgaws ( I love that word). She has a collection of Everything old and nostalgic. She was so easy to talk to and I know that she is going to be the method by which God will speak to me this week.

Thanks for your Prayers,

Mark Ogle-
Today was a great day to serve. I was put in a group that suited my abilities well. We were assigned to build a deck for an elderly couple and their grandson. The husband worked in the coal mines for decades and ruined his lungs in the process. He is confined to a 50 foot line of oxygen in his home. The ramp is basically to give him quicker access to get to a hospital if need be. The family welcomed us with warm Christian hospitality and Coroline made spaghetti for our group. I saw two open bibles in the family room with notes and heard references to God throughout the day with them. It feels great to be serving people of great character and faith.
Creating a deck with no plans in 90 degree weather didn’t help. The group worked well together despite this. The screws were very short and we had some difficulties with supplies but we got some solid work done on the deck. I can’t wait for tomorrow to go back and continue a job for other caring people.. I’m learning a lot from their faith. Evangelism isn’t a job on my list this week.

Jessi Tillman-
Today started off well…if you can say well for an overly tired teenager. I am part of the Upland group and we are at a work site. The home belongs to Pam and Marvin….Pam is completely deaf. So getting questions answered and understood was just slightly hard for me personally…but everything went really well. When we first got to the site, Tom (the site director) told us what we were doing and left. So, getting started on what was a little confusing. But we started off my scrapping off paint from the siding and the shutters. This is a painstaking job, especially when you have no masks, short ladders, and cranky teenagers. After scraping most of the shutters, we took a lunch break. Natilie and Taegan and the other leader from the other church, Ann. Went in to use the bathroom. That broke and water was flooding the bathroom. Pam helped them fix it, but when they thought it was fixed, the lid blew up again. That happened twice. After a glorious lunch of sandwiches and cheez-its, we started to paint the trim. It was the coolest color of blue ever. And Pam seemed pretty excited about the color, and so was I. We got some of the trim done, and we hope to finish that up by tomorrow. The museum today was really interesting. Again, when I have left home this year, I have learned something new, like the Hatfield McCoy feud or the massacre that happened in the town that I can’t pronounce or spell. Our church and club times followed, and I really got to learn about some of the cool things Jesus has done. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this week goes!

Another great day of learning about God through serving and showing His love to others. More stories tomorrow, for now it's off to bed (I'm going to sleep good tonight...). Thanks all for your support!

T

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