At today’s worksite we sorted something different. Do you know how some girls are embarrassed about purchasing feminine products? Well I no longer am. Today my group sorted multiple boxes of Kotex, Poise, and Depends. I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER SEEN SO MANY FEMININE PRODUCTS IN MY LIFE…IT WAS INTENSE! The East Letcher Ministry Center receives more donations than their own community needs so the three palettes we sorted today were being shipped to places like Africa. Moving on to our next task: clothes sorting. We spent the better part of an hour organizing Men’s, Women’s, and Children’s clothing. Once the clothes were sorted, a line of people began to browse for easy finding. Meanwhile the other group was back at the house that we worked on yesterday, finishing up the dry wall. Back at the Community Center Kendra, Anne, and I were sorting out simple stuff like shampoo and soaps. We decided it would be a good idea to take these toiletries to the line of people that waited for their monthly free food pickup. The minute I stepped outside, I was mauled by people from every possible angle. But something today caught my attention. There was a woman in her 40s, who came up to me, and looked at me with the kindest eyes, and she said to me “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, God bless you child.” From that moment, I didn’t really take the compliment that importantly, but as it lingered upon me for a bit, I realized that you can change the world, by one random act of kindness at a time. 

-Allyse Hackler 

Today for recreation, we enjoyed a nice game of roundball on the Homes Inc. Forum (aka the half court basket). Jay Lehoczky, Andrew Garner, Kelly Ingersoll, Matt Cockle and Jay Todd Max and myself were playing our beautiful game of intense competition, when suddenly, Jay Todd went up for a rebound and landed on Mr. Garner’s foot.  Mr. Max ended up spraining his ankle and the game ceased due to this accident.  We also went to some Bentley store that had random items.  We also played the bean bag game, as well as listened to a huge rainstorm, complete with hail. Later we had pasta for dinner and I wrote seven letters to my sister.  Then we went to Mike Johnson’s Dairy Bar, and realized that there are Pepsi and Coke ads on the premises.  Mike Johnson’s is no White Castle, but its still pretty baller.  Then we had worship and I wrote this blog, which coherently isn’t that good, but we didn’t do much of note, unlike last year where we went to WHITE CASTLE.

-MATT MARTINY 

Tonight in worship we wrapped up the entire week.  We discussed many important events that occurred during the day.  A few examples were of what happened today while renovating the new build and what happened while working in the east Letcher ministries (elm).  Although I only worked at the new build, I heard some funny and interesting stories which made me feel good about what our group had conquered this week.  Also in worship, we said many prayers thanking God for the opportunities we have been given and how God allowed us to help less fortunate people than ourselves.  Closing up the worship tonight we gave out our prayer partner gifts and said our closing prayers. 

-JEFF JENSEN

Worship: Our worship tonight started with the idea that we all have had and continue to have different identities. God knows our pasts, our present and who we are becoming. God loves us despite our pasts and constantly challenges us to become who we really are meant to be. We sang songs and prayed. We shared thoughts about our past roles in life. We reminded each other that we are all LOVED children of God.
Work: Today got off to a pretty slow start as we sat around for most of the morning. We were so effective in our previous days of work that they had to scramble around during the morning to find more work for us to do. Once going we continued to tear it up, putting up new insulation and dry wall in a house that had suffered smoke damage last winter, but had sat idle until now. We also discovered how hard it is to hold the very heavy pieces of dry wall to the ceiling while somebody comes around with a screw gun to put it in place. We also successfully completed the removal of an old tub and shower along with the replacement of a new one. Tomorrow I expect a completely finished and dry walled house.

Food and Fun: This day involved much free time which allowed for lots of fun and games. The bulk of that free time presented itself in the evening. Andrew, Jay and Matt C. took the opportunity to take their newly purchased basketball shooting sleeves on a test run on the court. Ben, Kendra, Allyse, Justin and Kelsey spent their free time working on dance moves for the upcoming dance-off that the group from Connecticut, who is also working with Homes for the week, had challenged us to in the morning. Many adults enjoyed the hilarity provided by the game Would You Rather, as they laughed the night away. The rest wore out arms and friendships in the competitive battle for bean-bag toss dominance. Kelly and JT fought their way to supremacy in this contest. Another popular activity was decorating the stoles which Kelly had introduced for us to give to our prayer partners. After a day of much gaiety and feasting, which included home-cooked food at the Cozy Corner, it seems that everyone fell asleep fat and happy!

The mission trip, up until now, has been quite an experience – it has known no shortage of exciting events and inspirational moments. Today has been the second full day at Neon, Kentucky. We have finished the demolition of the house we were assigned to. The destruction of a house within two days has brought a great morale boost to the group – Seeing as the normal destruction of such a house would take around five days. Tomorrow we are to move onto a new project, and rumor has it that we are doing drywall of some sort. No promises are being made, however, so the verdict waits until the morning. I seem to be growing out of my shell every passing day at these mission trips and the trip to tall oaks – which most definitely is a good thing.

-Ben Giguere

After a very productive but long day of work, we loaded up the vans and headed back to our bunk house. I’m always amazed at just how dirty we get, but after cleaning up, dinner crew started to fix a Mexican food feast. They made tacos, fajitas, nachos and homemade guacamole. It was great! After dinner, we loaded up the vans and headed to Mike Johnson’s Ice Cream Shop to celebrate Ben Giguere’s birthday. We then headed to Dollar General to do some shopping and finally back home to hang out.

Later, we gathered again for worship. Worship is one of my favorite parts of mission trip. In our small and intimate services, we are able to talk about and reflect on the day. What went well, what did not. What was funny, and what was difficult. I think worship, more than any other daily event, brings us together the most. It is in worship that we are most comfortable with each other. It creates the awesome bonds that only mission trip can.

After worship, a few more laughs and games finished up our evening. I’m completely exhausted but still excited for the work we will be able to do tomorrow.

-Kelsey Wehr

We woke up and ate breakfast together, then took off for the worksite. We started our first day of work by demolishing a house. It was very entertaining for many of us young people as we got to use sledge hammers to destroy walls, and we also got to watch all sorts of things be burned in a huge, flaming fire. It was a lot of fun as we all worked together to get this house down. One thing that stood out was all the bees and wasps, and about 10 people got stung at least once. It was a long, hard-working day, but at the same time it was very nice knowing we were helping the community.

- Scott Kennedy

We enjoyed a lunch of cold cuts, baloney and peanut butter sandwiches at the job site. The day started cool enough but by 1 p.m. it was eastern Kentucky warm. We left the site at 4 p.m. returned back to clean up and eat dinner…at a Pizza Hut where with 10 young hungry men (along with “some” of the leaders and girls), we managed to eat them out of house and shop. This outing was followed by a stop at Wal-Mart for more food, of course. We returned to our quarters where Kelly and Justin had a meaningful devotional closing for the day as we were all ready to hit the bed in nearly comatose state.

-Carty Johannsen

The drive I heard was very interesting and full of many trees. Many people said it was a scenic route. The only problem was that I was in a van full of girls and I fell asleep the entire time. We did stop and eat at a few places but most of the time I was asleep.

- Kyle McCallister

Three words that come to mind to describe our first day – early, rainy, and beautiful. Yes, our day started early. After receiving a blessing from Glen and praying with our families, we pulled away from the church at 6:22 a.m. Not more than two hours after our departure it started to rain……and rain…..and rain. As one of the drivers, I became frustrated with the rain and the constant motion of the windshield wipers. (This was supposed to be a beautiful and relaxing drive to the mountains!) Little did I know that the beauty was waiting hours ahead of us. After more than 12 hours of driving (and constant rain), the beauty was finally upon us. It was like the heavens opened, the clouds separated, and I heard the faint sounds of the Alleluia chorus. We had reached the mountains and it was beautiful! The last two hours of the trip was just gorgeous.

- Anne Ingersoll