YSP - Youth Service Project - 2006
Sunday
11:18 pm
Hi.
Apparently its my job to keep a journal, a diary, a notebook, a what-have-you chronicling our adventures here in Appalachia...so, here goes nothing!
I suppose I could/should start with the beginning...but where does something like this start? Is the beginning the idea, back in September? the Fundraising? Or the packing? Maybe with the driving. We meant at church yesterday morning. After hellos, there were goodbyes. We were on the road around ten am and the ride was mostly uneventful. All of the children were with Myles - they (we) mostly slept or listened to music while I sat with Myles reading, sharing snacks, or trying to find agreeable music (which was a constant struggle, because after finally finding something enjoyable, it wouldn’t be long until we drove past the broadcast radius!)
Around four we stopped at Lexington. We had three rooms in a Holiday Inn and after unloading and watching the rest of the World Cup, we went out in search of food. The amazingly awesome rib place, Famous Davis, was closed, so we ended up at Outback. No rules...just right.
When we went back to the hotel, Jesse threw Emily (whom we met at the hotel) in the pool, with all of her clothes on. She was upset and lonely until Jenni was pushed in (her phone is still dysfunctional.) We all joined them later (with suits) and then went to bed...up early the next morning to attend the UMC of Lexington services. Same building, same people. Same amazing feeling of welcome ness. The people were all so open/accepting/ENCOURAGIN that it put us all in a great mood...or maybe that was the sermon (pray with joy/thanksgiving and make sure it is a first response.)
Once we left the church, we drove for a few more hours
--bedtime!
Monday
8:26 am
(Right, sorry. They (Chris, Kyle, Jesse, Nathan) wanted sleep so I had to shut my light off. I'll finish what I started.)
We left the church yesterday and drove a few more hours. The drive was much more interesting because we got off the interstate and started driving through the mountains. It was darker outside, because all of the clouds (and because of all of the undergrowth)...the area was almost a bit spooky. It was beautiful though...we would be driving along next to a mountain and enclosed and suddenly we would break through to a huge meadow or ravine with bright light, stretching miles. Although it started raining, it became more beautiful because we could see the clouds on the mountain side...whipsy, smoky, foggy clouds crawling up the mountains...the mountains were all you can see were green tree tops.
Eventually, we got to the settlement…it’s like an independent village on the top of a hill nestled between the mountains. The village gives the impression that it takes care of itself - I imagine that if the power goes out it ca take weeks for someone to fix it. The settlement consists of a bunch of buildings and a few houses. The dorms are large, open, boxy rooms on the first/second floors of a building where the conference room is (devotions and meetings.) There is another building for dining, a craft store, a volunteer fire department (that has been closed down for a few years) a garage, and the administration building. There are a few other buildings around, but we haven’t been told what they’re used for.
We pulled up to the dorms and Mary jumped out to talk to someone. We waited. When she came back, we drove to a two story brick house, reserved for us. The basement is full of bedrooms (and some really nice bathrooms) and is where the guys are staying. The girls are in separate bedrooms upstairs. From their bedrooms is a hallway leading to a family room. There is also a kitchen/dining room where we play euchre on big tables.
We arrived yesterday, unpacked, and then marveled at the house for a few hours until it was time for dinner. They fed us turkey sandwiches and then led us into the conference room for a long talk about rules and such. After that, we came back and played euchre until bed time. We (guys) gave ourselves a few minutes to read (write) and then turned off the lights.
We woke up at about 6:30 to the alarm, got dressed, and walked to the conference room for devotions. After that, we came back to the house for a few minutes to wait for our turn to eat breakfast (the group this year was so big that Henderson had to divide meals up into two different times.) We ate at 8:00, then came back to the house because the adults had to go to a meetings to find out about our project…so that’s where we are now, just waiting for the meeting to end. (Most people are playing cards…I’m writing, trying to catch things up.)
I was just talking to Jenni and Emily. They are afraid that they won’t get to help much because they don’t know anything about building. I told them not to worry; I’m going to try to keep them from being suck with paying with the kids. We were talking about the difference between this and ASP…although we haven’t worked yet, its already obvious that here they focus more on rebuilding the souls rather then rebuilding the homes…which is alright, I suppose… a little of both is good. Maybe I’ll feel differently when we see what kind of condition the place is in.
I don’t think any of us have meant anyone outside of our group…probably because we have such a nice house; we don’t leave - we don’t interact…but I’m not sure how many people from the other groups are making new friends either…I wish there were more team building activities.
11:30 pm
We just got back form Wall-Mart. It was like an hour away down very curvy rickety steep roads. All of the kids are in the boys rooms…just talking . About half of us want to go to sleep but out of being polite, we’re “conversing.” Wall-Mart was a lot of fun. We were being really silly, like yelling across the store or pretending to fall asleep in the beds. There was hardly anyone in the store, so I don’t think we were being rude or anything.
Tuesday
6:15 pm
(Sorry it’s so late; this morning we played cards instead of write.)
We’re more than half-way finished with our job. We were supposed to enclose a porch for a family to make it into a utility room. We got there yesterday morning after about a half hour of driving through long, curvy mountain roads. We pulled up a steep drive way that wound around an old house to a trailer. The back of the trailer had an attachment and a small porch (that we were to use.) The front had a big front porch where they had everything from strollers to chairs. Underneath the porch were random metal work things, and many five-gallon buckets (that were used to haul coal inside.) The trailer was built on a hill so it was a bit difficult to walk around the front of the house to the site.
Behind the house was about two-three feet of mud before the steady rise of the mountain. The water/mud smelled terrible…at first we thought it was sewage but found out it was from the hill. (Retrospect: maybe it was sewage.)
We looked around and then got to work. We had to tear out the porch railings and then measure the surface to lay down some OSV flooring…that was quick and soon we had people nailing it down. We than took lunch and began to work on walls…I ended up using the table saw to cut up the 2x4s. It was efficient, and I learned how to use the saw. (A lot of people learned new skills - Myles and Jim were very good at patiently teaching; Emily learned how to use the circular saw!)
Monday was very efficient - we had most of the frame up…however, it was hard to work on the mountain side of the porch because it was so terribly muddy and slippery…I think everybody slipped around once or twice. We decided that it wasn’t safe enough to try and put up the walls, so we ended up deciding to build a drainage ditch. When we got to the site, everyone started digging out a trench (there was already a smaller, useless trench that we used as a guide.) After a few minutes, the rest of us tried to finish up the walls while we waited for tile and stone. When the materials arrived, we took lunch. After, we worked on the trench. It was cool, because it was the job I did last year - I felt like the expert. I told Myles and Jim that we needed to dig it deeper, so they listened. After a few minutes, Jim asked me if I thought it was okay and it was like everyone was waiting for my opinion. I suppose it might have all just been the adults trying to include everyone else, but it was cool so I don’t really care if it was genuine or not.
(It’s cool to note: there is a lot of teamwork, and I think the kids all feel important - we take the time to talk things out and make sure everyone understands/is included.)
We buried the tile (drainage pipe) then began the hard work of moving the delivered gravel, bucket by bucket. While two/three people worked on finishing a wall (putting up the outside OSB) the rest of us would be digging or ferrying. Eventually we ended up burying the entire tile, and then spreading the stone around the house. At the end of the day, we had completely gotten rid of the mud and made the place look great…the biggest project was the one that we had took the initiative to do ourselves. (And man, was it hard work! In retrospect, the trench was the hardest thing we did all week…because that type of project is more brawn then brains (much more!).
At the end of the day, we came back, showered, hung out, dinner, and then re-hung out.
9:00 pm
Hi. We just got back from the night’s activity. It was some local storyteller. He was nice, sincere, and engaging; I enjoyed the session quite a bit. He told stories, but I saw Carol writing them down, so I won’t bother to re-write them.
Tomorrow is our free day, so I’m not sure what is going to happen. There are no morning devotions, so we are going to party tonight. (Last night we had a blast buying junk food at Wal-Mart! We had cart-races, and then we stacked up a bunch of cereal boxes like dominoes!)
Everyone is upstairs playing cards, so I’m going to go up. I’m not very good at drawing, (especially compared to Carol) but this is what our project looked a bit like:
{drawing}
Wednesday
11:00 pm
Hi.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to write, because we’re all in bed reading…but let me say that today was awesome. It was our day off, so we woke up late (no devotions)…we skipped breakfast. When we awoke, there was no power; Jim came in and woke everyone up. It was strange because there wasn’t a storm or anything last night.
Anyway, We got dressed and waltzed down to the office where Jerry, the scrawny work camp leader, picked us up in a van for a tour of the hollers, which was just driving around the old patches of land (holler = hollow). It was fun, I guess; lots of the same scenery we’re used to seeing (since our site is about 20-30 minutes away (and in Tennessee!))
After that, we came back and got in our cans to go visit the Cumberland National Park. After about an hour we made it to the lodge; it was absolutely beautiful. We were able to get on a top balcony and look out…there was a river (a bit dirty/sandy) that flowed between two mountains…there was so much violent color; lots of greens/yellows/browns. I’m sure we took pictures…it seriously looked like a cinema set. I can’t believe how fresh everything looked. (Even on the hollers tour). Before you come to Appalachia, you always hear about how beautiful it is: “Oh, you’ll just love it!” And we have all seen pictures and postcards and movie sets; most of us have seen the mountain s with our own eyes…but I’ll tell you that even expecting things to be beautiful, your breath will still be taken away. It’s like hiking…you’ll be walking along seeing nothing especially gorgeous - rocks, trees, flowers - when suddenly you’ll turn a corner and the trees to your right will melt away and for a few seconds there is an absolutely amazing view. Trees. Mountains. Fog. Blue. Green. Yellow. River. Trees. Cliffs. Trees. Mountains. It’s just amazing; the images is so strong; so powerful, that you wont notice immediately when its gone; when it slips back behind the trees. The image is there, an imprint on the part of our minds reserved for flowers and apple pies and cuddling and warm towels…the place that we forget about, that gets beat down and stomped upon when times get rough, but always seems to stay: alive, awake, warm. The image becomes part of you…a reminder.
It’s like God sending a postcard.
(It’s time to go to bed. We did a lot today, so I’m going to try to find time to write about it as soon as I can.)
Thursday
9:10 am
Hi. We’re in the van going to the site to work on siding and such. The girls and Carol and Mary are talking about movies and pop stars while the guys are reading.
Yesterday after the tour we drove to the Cumberland park thing. First we had a great brunch buffet at the lodge. After, we drove a little bit to find this trail to hike on. We got out of the van, put on shoes and started to walk. IT was a great hike; more then once we had to climb over rocks and such. We took a lot of pictures … it was a long hike but it was sweet when we made it to the waterfall. The Waterfall was cute, tall, and rocky; water fell down into a large lake formed by gigantic rocks. We climbed up the rocks behind the fall and got down to the point where we were standing under the falls. The water was so powerful, cold, and fresh. It was like bottled water! Anyway, we climbed down and took off our clothes and, despite the signs, JUMPED IN!
It really felt like we were characters in a book or movie or something. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall seemed to be about ten feet deep…we were able to cannonball through the waterfall into the lake, then swim about five yards and climb up on a big rock, walk around, and do it again. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time….and really, the only way to describe everything is with pictures…but even a picture won’t tell the entire story.
11:00 pm
Today was a strange day for work: it came in waves for the cutting crew (me and Emily. We’re saw masters!) At first we didn’t do much because only Carol and Myles could measure, cut, etc. to finish the wall with the door and the wall against the trailer (skilled work!)
After those got up, everyone was working to put furring strips. I showed Emily how to use the saw so we were able to spit out enough cut word to keep everyone else busy.
After the strips were tacked on, we took a small break while fascia was put up on the overhand. During that time, Jim and I made this sweet contraption to easily cut the siding; it involved setting up a “groove” for the siding to sit in and a contraption to lock the circular saw to get straight cuts…I made a thing on the end to easily tell where to push the siding up too…later we built another sawhorse because I need more room to hold up the siding…anyway, after lunch we started doing that. I cut and Kyle/Chris/Jesse jailed while others worked on the door (we had to get a cheaper door because the other one was too tall.)
At one point I took the initiative to cut out a notch for the window. The dimensions were all correct and after fifteen minutes of measuring I started to cut...but I cut from the wrong side! It was a stupid mistake and I knew it was as soon as I started….I was really upset, but apparently everyone understood (we used the piece for later, but still!) I think I’m getting much better with measuring/cutting/planning…at least I feel more comfortable.
Tomorrow we are running devotions - the outline took Jesse and I awhile to think up.
Saturday
4:14 pm
We’re about an hour from home. It’s hard to write and I don’t have much to say, but I’m not doing much else.
Yesterday morning we got up to run devotions. It went really well; there were a lot of people that came up to us and complimented us. We were the only group to actually make everything flow together well, and everyone really appreciated the time it took us to put it together. (Jesse and I took a lot of pride in that, because we DID spend a lot of time on the devotions, and it took us forever to figure out how we were going to wrap everything together…but we did a good job.)
Friday was hard at the site. It was very hot and boring. For the first part of the day we were all working, putting up siding and stuff. We had a great lunch of subs that Mary brought us and we ate with the family. After lunch, we just sat around because the only work that was left to do was “specialty” jobs…like putting up the last piece of siding. People that weren’t doing anything cleaned up. Carol and I worked on one wall; it took us about a half hour to finish three pieces of siding. When we were finished and ready to leave, we went to tell the family (which I haven’t been able to write much about - I didn’t really get to know them.) The little girl gave hugs and said “I love you!” It was really cute.
Later that day, we had a service in the chapel at the camp. It was really nice…the first part consisted of people telling stories about their experiences…the second part was a message, and then communion. We sang songs and had a good time…then we went home, packed, and played cards and hung out.
A quick note:
It was a fantastic experience. Our group would like to thank everyone for their gifts, support, and, more importantly, their prayers. On Thursday evening, when it was hot and we were tired, it was very comforting to think back to all the people that have supported us this past year and to all the people praying for us.
Thank You!