Week 1 in Appalachia has come to a close. It’s been an amazing week where Casey and I saw God show up truly start working in peoples, young and old alike. This week was our first week working in this region of eastern Tennessee. Neither Casey nor I had ever visited Morristown until we arrived Saturday. We met with Mike Cory, who was the Project Leader/Ministry Coordinator for this week’s ministry, and who would be coaching us and guiding us as we learned the ropes so that would be able to take on our own teams in a couple weeks. Casey and I are going to be in this region through the first week of August as Project Leaders/Ministry Coordinators working for AIM and with the local ministries and churches to help incoming, out-of-state churches reach out to the community in Morristown and the surrounding areas. We have been in Morristown for the past week working with a local church called Gateway and helping set things up with Mike for a church from Columbia City, Indiana and a church from the Cleveland area of Ohio. Needless to say it’s been a whirlwind of a week, but one in which God never failed to show up and guide us on our journey to honor him.
While we were here we had the opportunity to work with a ministry called One Body Ministry, led by Josh and Tim. After serving with a short term team prior, these two men moved to Rogersville, TN about 9 months ago with nothing but the desire and love God put on their heart to serve and help the community. They currently are working with local ministries and churches to find those in need of home repairs that have come on difficult times and have no way of affording the necessary repairs to include running water for toilets and showers, leaking roves, collapsing decks and steps, missing window….you get the idea.
So this week we were able to partner with Josh and get out to some homes in the area between Morristown and Rogersville. Initially we had two homes we were going to start working on, with two separate teams. One team was able to get started on their project of building a walkway that was more handicap accessible, while the other team was supposed to start on replacing some stairs that were falling apart. Initially the day did not go as planned. While the team working on the walkway wrote up an amazing idea for a ramp to make everything wheelchair accessible, the other team was unable to start on the stairs, because our resident, Wanda and her husband Waylon, were not home and we were unable to reach her to verify that we had permission to start our project. So Josh was able to find a brand new applicant, Ms. Carolyn, who had a deck on the verge of collapse and broken windows that needed replacing. After we arrived at Ms. Carolyn’s place and took stock of the situation a handful of us headed to Home Depot and Lowes to start getting all the needed materials. We got an estimate on the deck that the first team was hoping to make and unfortunately it was way over our budget for the entire week, let alone for the first day. We were able to compromise on a more modest setup though and were able to get all the needed materials to accomplish the task of making the walkway accessible for the couple that lived there. Fortunately because of this change we were able to finish this project in a couple days and start on another women’s home, Ms. Polly, whose toilet was not working and who had been unable to take a shower in quite some time due to the water not working.
Back at Carolyn’s we were able to build her a completely new deck in the back and put railings on the front deck. Once again we were starting to run into budget restrictions, but Mike was able to make some adjustments and get us some extra finances to finish the deck as well as cover all the materials we needed to put in new stairs at Wanda and Waylon’s place. It looked like we would have to wait and do the windows another week, again money was running short, but the Lord blessed with some donations from friends of our youth teams. Because of these extra donations we were able to purchase and install a new set of windows. One of the youth team leaders, Troy, was able to get a local cement factory to donate some gravel to even out Carolyn’s driveway and make it safer as it’s up in the hills and because an unsafe place when it becomes rainy and snowy.
So what we had planned did not work out as we had initially hoped. What God had planned worked out so much better. We initially didn’t have any intention of going to Carolyn’s home and doing any work on her place, we thought we’d be busy all week doing ramps, decks and stairs. We thought our plans were falling apart when Wanda and Waylon weren’t home. We thought we were in a financial pickle when we couldn’t do the deck we initially wanted to do for the other residents. I guess the Lord just decided we needed a little help in figuring out what we were going to do for a construction week. I guess He decided to mix things up a little bit so that we could serve people that weren’t even on our radar at the beginning of the week. All I know is that this week’s construction projects were only possible because to Lord trashed our plans and made His own that he expected us to follow. Fortunately we had a team of amazing leaders and wonderful youth that were willing to listen to the changes the Lord was asking us to make and they gave everything they could to serving these people they had never met and helping improve their lives.
Oh and here is Josh and Tim’s website, check em out, we will be working with them a ton over the next month or so!
http://onebodyministry.missionsplace.com/
