2003 Mission Trip

Greetings from Beattyville, Kentucky! Our group - Liz Jennings, Sara Klockow, Rob Martin, Mike Wildman, Mike Taylor, Jessi Klockow, Brenda Martin, Chris Rusch, John Yonker, Molly Read, Seth Kasmann, Matt Loring, David Heise and myself - has all risen and looks GOOD this morning! :) As I look around the room, all I see are cooperative and flexible youth who I am confident will make this trip a super-great one.

The drive to Kentucky yesterday was very good and we had no unexpected problems. After leaving the church at 1:00pm, basically only stopped at Burger King and arrived at 1:00pm (local time). We are being hosted by Faith United Methodist Church which is across the road from the Beattyville High School. This is a lovely church and has a shower that they are allowing us to use. :) A shower... but it’s a good one! The only think that I’ve realized is that I didn’t bring any Diet Mountain Dew for myself. :) ahhhh, small worries... or big worries!

LeeRoy Brandenburg, the coordinator of the Kentucky Small Farms Project, is meeting us here at Faith UMC at 8:30am (our time) when we will learn more about this ministry of the Disciple church and go out and do something! We’ll tell you more about it later after we have been able to see the area, meet some people, and do some work.

The group is doing great but are unable to access a computer today in order to e-mail pictures and updates to us. I talked with Amy Kay though, and she plans to be able to send a big update tomorrow, so please check back then!

This is Tuesday morning and we are coming alive at 7:15am. Fortunately, a lot of our group members wake up and are in a good mood! Some are even chatty and chipper... others aren’t annoyed by these morning spirits so we all get along great. :)

Yesterday, after meeting LeeRoy at Faith UMC where we are staying, we followed him to Joyce’s house where we scraped the cement area on the basement of the outside of her house. After scraping (mostly with putty knives) we watered down the wall and played games while we waited for the next step. We were reminded that it was almost noon (Kentucky time) and we were looking forward to having a huge meal with the other group that is at the Kentucky Small Farms Projects. The other group of 20 is from Louisiana and is of the Catholic faith. We found ourselves with a bit of time to spare so we promptly filled it with playing catch with apples from the tree, running around during elbow tag, and racing through Streets and Allies. Whew! We were ready to wash our hands and greet the other group for one heck of a feast. Fried chicken... potatoes... green beans... corn... pasta and tomatoes... corn bread... sauerkraut... coleslaw... three types of dessert... and pop to drink. Everything was from Joyce’s garden which must have been a couple acres. WOW, did we eat well! Joyce and her daughters hooked us up with a FEAST! We felt loved. :)

After lunch we hit the wall and, with David’s coordination, we all had jobs with the painting process. It took us a couple of hours to paint two coats of white paint on the outside of Joyce’s basement and, if we must say so ourselves, it looked good! :) After washing out our brushes we wished Joyce well and headed off to see our job site for today. We will be at this second site for the remainder of our trip as we are doing all of the prep work and painting inside a house. As in, every room of this house will be painted by our group. Along with this task, we will be painting the outside of a trailer which is just up the path from the first house. The Partners worked with LeeRoy to make a list of supplies that we will need and we appear to be set.

When we arrived back at the church, we showered (in our one shower - everyone is very patient and kind) and had some down time. There was some incredible singing coming from the sanctuary, cards were being stacked up in houses, bracelets were being made, basketball was being played, and all were happy. Somewhere along the way the group got tangled up in Phase 10 with Chris Rusch and didn’t stop until we pried them away for a yummie spaghetti dinner by our own Brenda. It was go-od! After supper the game resumed until we had some circle time where we shared reflections from the day. It was a nice time of group chatting about what we saw and the people we met. We also had a Talent Show amongst our group that included some accordion and piano music along with other funny skits. Then, to finish out our day, we laid down to watch "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" It seemed that most of us fell asleep so David helped us out by turning off the movie half way through. :) It was a big day! :)

We are truly looking forward to a big full day today and are excited about what might be in store for us. Please think of us... and we’ll check in with you tomorrow!

**you can always call us if you need to. Cingular service is awesome up here - 808-1980.

The group is doing well and only has one more work day left! David has been mr. handy man and has been able to do a ton around the projects we've been assigned to accomplish.

One of the pictures below is of us on a porch that we treated today. We finished one porch for a very nice lady named Jacki, and she is all by herself now that her husband and son have both passed away. We were pleased to be able to help her. She fixed us an amazing meal too - the hospitality here is wonderful!!

Some of our group finished up Brenda's house this morning. That project was quite long and somewhat... eye opening. We were glad to be able to go all together to Jacki's friend's house for an afternoon of porch treating. We will have to come back tomorrow morning and finish the job.