Appalacian Mission Trip Journal
June 2000

Several members of Central's Youth Group and adult sponsors left Sunday afternoon, June 11, 2000, for a mission and singing trip to Indiana and Kentucky. Pictured above (standing) are Jan and John, Carla, Ryan, Matt, Arik, Bryan, Brea and Don. Kneeling are Lindsey and Matt. Theresa, Andy, Debra and Sarah joined the group later in the week.

Check out the Daily Updates!

Monday, June 12, 2000

1st stop - John got pulled over by an unmarked car (or so it appeared in the van's rear view mirror). A car phone to car phone call revealed that it was just Mike and Susan Bryant wanting to hand over the forgotten sleeping bag.

We got into Indy in plenty of time to have leisurely fast food -- half the group went to McDonalds, the other half to Wendy's. We were met at the church by our contact and shown around. Unloaded the car and van. Rehearsed and gave our stupendously successful premier 7 p.m. concert. Matt Bryant's aunt Mary came to our concert! We had a great worship experience and proved to ourselves that we do indeed have a good message to share.

There were no showers in the church ( but that didn't stop the creative guys. The wash basin and hose in the janitor's closet worked just fine. We found a VCR in the parlor and everybody enjoyed eating popcorn and watching "October Sky".

Breakfast was a little rushed. The pastor stopped by and casually reminded us that the time would be changing when we got to Kentucky. Oops! Roll up those sleeping bags and hit the road! Don had to call ahead and reschedule our 1 p.m. Berea College tour for 2 p.m.

Roll call:
Brea - brought the most snacks. Didn't eat breakfast, but doing well anyway.
Lindsey- voted best bandana.
John - thought we'd need 2 gallons of milk for breakfast--wrong!
Bryan - got a giga liter of pop at McDonalds--floated away.
Ryan - wanted to buy fireworks that are illegal in Illinois. Permission denied.
Matt B - the storyteller. Did you ever hear about Stripe the caterpillar?
Carla - washed her hair in the youth room sink.
Matt W - sore knee from running laps around the church (that's kind of lame!). Recovered by mid-day.
Arik- has done nothing noteworthy, except for the notes in his guitar playing and singing.
Jan - washed her hair in the kitchen sink.
Don - happy face. Bringing back memories of prior choir tours. He makes great microwave popcorn. (later) Don not quite so happy that the advertised Day's Inn swimming pool is closed for repairs.

Thanks to extra snacks from the Outreach and Fellowship Dept people, and from parents, we did not have to pay for lunch today. Having thus saved, we are allowing ourselves a nice meal at the historic Boones Inn tonight.

Tomorrow we head to Smith, KY. We are all fine. -- John and Jan B., reporting.

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

Our first full day near Smith, Kentucky, was productive, educational and fun.

Don led a six-person crew painting the house of an 84-year-old widower. The home's exterior ended up beige with purple trim, but the workers definitely seemed to prefer the purple, returning to our home base at mid-afternoon with a fair amount adorning their faces, arms and clothing. Painting with Don were Lindsay, Carla, Debra, Bryan and Brea.

Andy, meanwhile, led a group that cleared brush from an area where another work group will pitch their tents later this summer. In the afternoon, the workers enhanced the local water system by running a hose from a stream to a holding tank. Water, it seems, is not reliable resource when you turn the faucets in this part of Kentucky. We did experience this first-hand for a while this morning. Working with Andy were Ryan, Matt, Matthew and Arik.

John formed a crew of one tuning the worship center's piano, and when rehearsed this evening, the difference was noticeable.

Jan, Theresa and Sarah did most of the support work (although it has to be said that John fried some mean potatoes for supper), taking sandwiches and bottled water to the paint crew for lunch and making chicken noodle soup and bagels for the people working closer to
the home base.

Sarah also baked a chocolate cake that was enjoyed with ice cream before bedtime.

The day's work was followed by a refreshing trip to Martin's Fork Lake, where everybody swam, many washed their hair and shaved their legs and the men played beach football. A lot of people admired Don's spiral passes and Theresa tried to capture some of the action without getting sand in her camera.

Between John and Theresa, this mission trip will be well-documented in photos (if they turn out).

After a dinner of oven-baked chicken drumsticks, the aforementioned fried potatoes and broccoli, the group rehearsed for a performance at 9 p.m. Thursday for the Indiana group here working at Martin's Fork Interfaith Center with us.

Don led a thought-provoking discussion where we talked about what we learned today. We wondered if we should have said anything when the widower ordered a member of our paint crew off a ladder because that is "a man's work." We also talked a lot about the strongly held political views expressed by the Kentuckians we have met. The Confederate symbols in the trailer where we're cooking our meals and some of us are sleeping was a topic for comment as well.

With rain in the forecast for Thursday, we are not exactly sure what we'll be doing, but then, we didn't know last night what we would be doing today. Such is the pattern of our mission trip so far.

Thursday, June 15, 2000

We haven't really gotten into a routine the way most of us would define it, but we felt more settled just the same during our second full day in Smith, Ky.

Three of us would return to finish painting the widower's home - Don and Jan with special roof work by Sarah - the rest of the guys would work on the water system again, and the everyone else would tidy up the church where the youth have been staying to prepare for our concert at 8 p.m. today.

Theresa headed up the housekeeping group, and our task was to move sleeping bags, towels, shoes, CD players, etc. to the back of the room without mixing people's stuff up too much. Andy worked with the men moving a lot of earth and rocks to create a holding pool to further improve this area's water supply. Many crawdads were captured during this effort and released, but Debra is interested in bringing home two salamanders that were caught. So far they seem to be surviving in the jar of water they were placed in.

We went back to Martin's Fork Lake again but didn't stay quite as long because it was cloudy and cooler today. The group attracted quite a bit of attention by shampooing their hair en mass while in the lake. We may not have made this clear before, but the church has no restroom, and the trailer we are using to cook our meals just has one bathroom. So keeping everyone respectable has been a creative process.

We're certainly eating well, though, with scrambled eggs, bacon and muffins (baked in one piece in a cake pan - there's that creativity coming out again - lunch was cheese toasties and fresh fruit, with the former giving the trailer a unique, smoky ambiance, and supper a hardy supply of spaghetti, tossed salad and confetti cake.

The highlight of the day, of course, was the concert. The other work group from Alexandria, Ind., came to hear us, as did Charles Hamlin and his mother, Lucy. The music sounded more wonderful that it usually does, and we hope it inspired the audience. It seemed to - they gave a standing ovation and invited us to their devotional time afterward. Carla's solo of the Lord's Prayer was particularly lovely. The Indiana group's devotional was about violence in the world, and it seemed to be inspired by a recent rape and murder in Anderson, Ind. They are members of the Alexandria Church of the Nazarane. We also took a look at where we would have stayed had Charles not doubled-booked his work groups this week. Nice kitchen, dining room, living room, bedrooms with bunk beds, but most importantly, there were TWO showers and a toilet/sink for the men AND the women. But the other group has been here since Sunday and is a larger group as well, so things probably worked
out for the best.

Tomorrow we're going to make visits, traveling with the Indiana group, and see the Cumberland Gap, where Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia meet. After lunch, we plan to depart for Corbin, Ky., to spend the night before going the rest of the way to the amusement park on Saturday. We are looking forward to what is ahead but starting to feel sorry about the goodbyes soon to come.

Friday, June 16, 2000

Day's Inn, Corbin, KY -- Comments from the youth about the Choir/Mission Trip 2000 to Kentucky

Arik:
We met a lot of interesting people on this trip. Charlie, the guy at the Interfaith Center, and his mother, seemed a little extreme in some of their ideas, which they share so readily, but their commitment to helping the people in their community without concern for personal gain really impressed me. Also, we met a group of kids and adults from Anderson, Indiana also there
to help at the Martin's Fork Interfaith Center. Their energy seemed a little overboard until I realized that it came from their very serious commitment to God. They ended up being a fun group to hang out with and I think we learned a lot from them. And this was all in addition to getting to help out some of the most impoverished people in the country. It's been a great experience.

Brea:
I won't criticize Decatur water any more. I took a bath in the creek (so did Carla) with soap and shampoo, and shaved in the water while standing on a rock. The water was just above my knees
because the guys had built a dam earlier in the day. We visited some poor people way up in the mountain who were old. Granny was 87 and her two sons lived there. They invited us in their house, but one of the sons was smoking and it made me feel sick. I never snored until I came on this trip or had sneezing allergies--I have sneezed 1002 times! I am allergic to Kentucky!

Ryan:
I went into this trip not knowing exactly all the details, but after the first day I knew it was going to be fun. The first night may not of had a lot of people in the audience, but I had fun. The next place was Martin's Fork Interfaith Center. At first, this place was not where I wanted to be. Then I got to know Charlie and the center better. Charlie had views about the government that I didn't agree
with-then I started not to like it again. Then I met 3 little kids named Josh, Mikey, and Kevin who were kids that lived right near the place. These 3 kids changed my view on the whole center. Mikey, who was 8, knew those mountains like I know the mall. Kevin and Josh run around the stream bed with no shoes. The jagged rocks cutting against their bare small feet was amazing. I am surprised they didn't yell or anything. These 3 kids changed my life forever and they made the rest of my trip more enjoyable. I wish everyone could visit Smith, KY due to the fact of what it has to
offer. It may not be a big city with a mall and Super WalMart, but they have the mountains and their history which they believe in and follow so much. The trip was a blast!

Carla:
This trip to Kentucky has been quite an eye opener for me. I never realized that people still lived in such poor conditions. This past week, we haven't had any of the luxuries that we have at home. I always thought that if I wasn't surrounded in comfortable conditions, that I would be unhappy. But this week was WAY less than comfy, but I actually enjoyed myself and learned a lot about myself and others. I met a lot of people down here with very different views than me. But I realized that it worked better in dealing with them if I stayed open-minded. So, this trip has been rough - but well worth it.

Bryan:
Q: So, what did you think about the toilet in the trailer?
A: "It stunk!"
Q: How was the food?
A: "Some of it was pretty good."
We painted a house where an old man lived. I didn't care for the color combination-plum raisin and ranch. I got stung by a bee. Old man Cliff Williams ("Wiyyums") took some "tobacky" out of his pouch and put it on the bee sting for a couple of seconds. Then it stung less, and there was no
swelling. Pretty cool. I got tons of paint on me (especially on my jeans), but it came off my skin easily.

Matt B:
I had a great time on our trip to Kentucky. There were some kids, one named Mikey, that really opened my eyes to their way of life. I appreciate both ways of life and thank the Lord for the opportunity to have seen them.

Sarah:
I think our time we've spent at the center was a wonderful and eye-opening experience. We got to help people who were so grateful and really needed help. I think it's great how well this youth group comes together and are such great friends. I enjoyed painting trim on an old man's roof. Even though the roof was really hot and I burned my butt and I got purple paint all over me! I'm having a great time and I would like to thank the church congregation for supporting us. I'll see you all next Sunday!

Matthew W:
In the closing days of this trip I sit back and reflect on the past week I have spent. I look back and thank God for everything I have. Also, this trip has taught me that you should never take life for granted. By helping out at the Martin's Fork Interfaith Center, I feel that I have helped the
people living there breathe a little easier by lightening the workload. If I get another chance, I would enjoy returning to the area to help out again.

Lindsey:
I had the chance this week to meet a truly inspiring group of people from Indiana that were also doing mission work at Martin's Fork Interfaith Center. This group of teenagers showed me that you should never be afraid to express your love for God. Sitting in on their devotions, I was amazed that so many of the kids were not afraid to claim their love for God. I had the opportunity to talk with one of the girls and hear her testimony, and it really opened my eyes. It made me realize just how special my relationship with God is. I am very grateful to Krystal for her ability to share her testimony with me. If it wasn't for her and the rest of her youth group, I probably would have never gotten the chance to open myself up and let God in. This was one of the best weeks of my life and I will never forget this experience.

---

Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
(217) 428-4336

email the webmaster at gbarron@cccdisciples.org