Country roads, take me home to the place, I be-long, West virginia, mountain momma, Take me home, country roads

Well you probably never thought you would see a country song in a title of anything I would post but I just got back from West Va. and felt that this song captured a lot of what I have felt from my trip.
When I took my internship I was asked to go on an Appalachian Service Project (ASP). I replied that I would, not knowing anything about the trip, which was probably a God moment. You see I’ve never done anything like it. The closest thing was the Katrina relief work I did with Campus Crusade. The ASP trip involved helping repair houses for people who lived in the Appalachia region and could not afford, or were not able to do the repairs themselves.
I was quite nervous, seeing that I have had no experience in such things and I was somewhat thrust into the situation. I was quite intimidated by the adults because they knew what they were doing and I didn’t. So I was feeling like this was going to be a disaster. But God took care of me. He provided me with many blessings on this trip.
First of all my team, they were great. I was paired with a woman we called the “General” she was hardcore and knew exactly what needed to be done and how. She was awesome, she took charge of the situation. I also had some great kids on my team. They were in charge of going down into the crawl space and pulling the insulation from the foundation. They were great hard workers. It was a bit of a challenge working with one. He was an atheist. I didn’t know how to reach him. We, being the other adult and kids, worked hard to answer his questions and provide information for him to ponder over. I don’t think we transformed him, but we at least got some wheels turning about his faith. He seemed to be interested in some of the summer activities that were being planned, so I hope that he’ll show up and God can work through me on him. (Please pray for this.)
Secondly God blessed us with a great job. As I mentioned before, our duty was to take out the insulation and make holes underneath the house so that we could reinforce the foundation. Our second job was to create a concrete drainage ditch and fill gravel into the larger drainage ditch that went all the way around the house to prevent water from getting into the house. I assisted with the concrete drainage ditch…which I didn’t know what the purpose of it was to be until the very end.

The majority of our job depended on the delivery of gravel, which wasn’t always delivered on time or at all. So we waited around a lot, which gave us a lot of time to talk with the family. We shared with them and they shared with us. They had a lot of struggles to overcome. The father of the family was almost killed in a car accident, their youngest has had a lot of medical allergies due to the insulation from under the house being moldy. But other than that they seemed to be a happy and loving family. We bonded real well with them.
God taught us that He is way bigger than us. On the second day we had an older gentleman drive up with two men dressed up in suits, we assumed they were attorneys but ended up being men from the sheriffs department. He was yelling that we were on his property and that we had to get off. He and the other two men talked with the family and some of the project staff about the situation. The next day we were told to set out and to prove this old guy wrong. We had to go and find correct records and maps, and were unable to find any. We went to about 4 different places to find it. We ended up measuring out the property and checking their deed and it turns out that the old guy was right. The family had put a shed and the ditch on his property. We were devastated; we felt that it was our mission to figure out that the family was right and we weren’t able to help. So we sat down and prayed about it. We had to realize that it wasn’t our job to fix the situation but it was something that God would have to intervene in. He was going to have to work in the heart of the old man, and work with the family to solve this solution.

I’m so glad I went on this trip. West Virginia is breathtakingly beautiful with all of the green mountains. The people are a bit backwards, and their love of bluegrass music is a bit sickening for my tastes. But overall it was a pleasant experience. And I can’t wait to go back next year!