News from Henderson Settlement in Appalachia - heading home

By the time you read this many of us will have made it back to Michigan. It was a quick mission trip! And most of us (I didn’t talk to everyone) would come back again! The kids were especially enthusiastic. I learned that our church is one of the few that come to Henderson with such variety in the ages of its participants! Bravo for FUMC Ann Arbor for being willing to grow disciples for Christ at any age!

Jerry Lambdin who is the director of the Mission Outreach arm of Henderson Settlement, gave a short presentation yesterday about the history of Henderson Settlement and talked about the pervasive poverty in the area. We learned that Henderson is involved in many different areas of assistance – from an agriculture ministry (with 4 greenhouses, 60 beef cattle, 90 meat goats and two Great Pyreneans goat dogs!), to a food pantry (giving out 250 boxes of food a month), to 400 out-in-the-community work projects a year (helping 150 to 200 families). I could go on... Our trip really does help provide for the basic needs of the people in this community – not only the work projects that we did on people’s homes but also the donations we brought with us – little things like a bag of flour. We have all been blessed to be able to help out in this little corner of the world.

See you all soon,
-- Carol

News from Henderson Settlement in Appalachia -work day two

Day two turned out to be a beautiful day. We saw the clouds lift out of the valley and here came the sun! Now, after a full day, we are tired! But everyone feels good about their projects.

The ditch digging (to reroute rain water coming off of a roof here on campus) is complete! Picture this: 10 kids, age 10 or under, digging with pick axes, a 50 foot trench, 18” wide and deep, through the mud. (Remember, yesterday it poured rain!) And then they hit concrete! (Apparently a long time ago it was a paved area. Who knew.) Suddenly their digging also included breaking up concrete! At any rate after two days of working on that project it looks like it did before they started, except now the rain water is flowing through an underground pipe. Great job kids (and their adult supervisors/digging helpers)!  

Other projects were also completed: The fencing project (I failed to mention this one yesterday — another one with lots of able youth workers) put up all of the fencing materials that were in stock. This was not your run of the mill, string up some wire and call it a day — this was fencing running through woods and mostly up and down steep slopes! Challenging.

68 pounds of onion sets were picked over and bagged into one pound bags (to be sold by the garden ministry that is here on campus), and hundreds more soup labels where trimmed and counted. The porch projects also wrapped up. A couple of crews came back for supper and then returned to work because they didn’t want to leave a job incomplete! (Oops, I forgot to check with the soffit crew and they’ve gone to bed!)

Thank you to all, for your support and donations.

Blessings,
-- Carol

News from Henderson Settlement in Appalachia -work day one

My, we were busy today. We were the church in the community at several different projects: at the home of a great grandmother who can’t get around too much because of issues with her back. Her project was to replace porch boards. (We have learned that porches are important in this area – it provides a prime spot to gather with the family and friends.) A different group was at the home of grandparents raising their two young grandkids — theirs was a porch railing build. There was yet another group at another porch project (porches!) though this one was to replace the steps and provide railings. The final out-in-the-community project is to replace the soffits on a home – lots of ladder work (not for the faint at heart). Then there was also work on the “campus” - in the greenhouse,  mucking out goat stalls in the barn, clipping Campbell’s soup labels (they are close to the 1.6 million labels needed to get a new van!) and digging ditches. Oh and did I mention that it poured rain? (The forecast is for no precip tomorrow!)

Unfortunately two of us have had to head home early due to sickness. Prayers for a quick recovery would be appreciated.

Blessings,

--Carol

We've made it to Henderson Settlement in Appalachia

We have made it to Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Kentucky – all 54 of us! Some of us got caught in a huge traffic backup on the way here – road construction! And some of us took a little detour - and noticed colors in the trees. (Spring)! Regardless, we all arrived safely. Tonight we held a powwow to form work crews, and got to know each other by playing a game that combined name recognition, our servant-hero (some folks from church were named!), and Red-Rover-Red Rover.

We are looking forward to tomorrow’s projects which may include digging (the youngsters on this trip are really looking forward to this), painting, greenhouse work (my personal favorite), replacing decking, putting on porch railing, and probably projects we don’t even know about yet!  (It also depends on the weather.) They’ve been telling us to be patient and flexible – the two keys to a successful mission trip! Here’s hoping.

-- Carol Hulbert