Appalachia 2025 Mission Update # 1
After a more than twelve hour drive, our team of ten has made it to Appalachia safely!
These first few days of mission have been so abundantly life giving. So far, we have worked with International Disaster Emergency Service (IDES) to help repair homes in Pikeville, Kentucky damaged by major flooding. We stayed at Coal Run Church of Christ where three men, Mr. Brandon, Mr. Donnie, and Mr. Mason, guided us in our home repair work and provided us dinner each night. The people of IDES have shown us so much love. They have definitely reminded us of the importance of choosing to fill the glass of others before your own, because when you live in Christian community, you can trust that others will fill your glass up for you.
Through most of the week, our team has been split into two groups, one doing home repair for the Johnson family, and the other for the Bakers. At the Johnsons’, we've been replacing ruined floor insulation, rotten plywood floor panels, and doorways. We've also been putting in new doors, wall insulation, and other things their house needs. At the Bakers’, the group put up walls and cleaned out their flooded basement. Both homes that we've been working with were impacted by a flood that hit the area three months ago.
On our last day, we decorated Coal Run's chapel with VBS decor. We left that day to travel to Elizabethton to get introduced to Angie Odom, who founded the Elizabethton centered TLC center.
TLC started out as a women's crisis center, and now aids in feeding children in need, facilitating foster care, teaching motherhood skills, and caring for these people in more ways than we can name right now. Mrs. Angie shared the testimony of the amazing work she does and how working with the suffering and her own foster daughter has deeply and personally shaped her faith. Hearing her talk was extremely edifying to us, as she and her foster daughter are filled with the Holy Spirit in a way that is transparent through all the stories she told. Most of the work we'll be doing for the TLC center is construction and organization as we help them get established at their new location after their landlord decided to sell their old one.
Saturday we took a day of rest, and walked around downtown Elizabethton. We also hiked a trail outside of town to a waterfall, which also happens to be a small portion of the Appalachian Trail.
Each night during the trip our group does evening prayer, and either debrief or book club. During debrief, everyone has a turn talking about how they're feeling. There has been a lot of service, spiritual growth, and community building already on this trip, and we're really looking forward to what the rest of the trip will look like! Please be praying for our team and the people we will be working with, and stay tuned for more updates!
