Serving in Henryville, IN

This week we’re serving with a group in Henryville, Indiana, where a year ago an EF-4 tornado touched down, destroying the local high school, hundreds of structures, and killing 10 people. 6 other tornadoes touched down throughout the region that day, killing a total of 40 people, including 22 in our home state of Kentucky.

The local organization we’re working with has brought in 10,000 volunteers during the past year. They have worked on 816 properties, and returned 262 families to their homes. To date, they have done 11 “total rebuilds” and 4 more are in process.

The families we are serving are similar to families we’ve served in other places. They are the looked-over, the under-resourced. They either have no insurance or not enough. Often they have lived in the same area for generations, and several related families share adjoining property. Time and again, we hear that just before the storm a loved one had died. Many times one of the homeowners is dealing with a difficult illness or injury. Often, the families have children with special needs. The towns chewed up by tornadoes are notably small. Most everyone knows the people who died and everyone has either lost everything they own or loves someone who did.

In many ways, it’s clearly been a year since the storm. Newly built homes dot the area and seeing rebuilding work teams standing in line at the truck stop restrooms are now just a part of everyday life. In other ways, it seems like it must have just happened. The property next to where we’re working has neatly organized piles of belongings sitting along the edge of their property as if it is waiting to be picked up for removal or storage. 12 months later, it sits.

We come as just a blip. We come largely unskilled for the work we need to do, relying on the problem solving and critical thinking skills learned through a college education to help us figure out how to tear apart a damaged-beyond-repair house. We are humbled by the vulnerability of strangers who invite us in to be part of a traumatic moment in their lives. We come to be changed so we can be part of changing the world for good.

Henryville group before leaving

On our way!

ASB 2013

Hi everyone!

It’s time for the University of Louisville Interfaith Center Alternative Spring Break trip!

We already have a group on the road to the Christian Appalachian Project in Eastern Kentucky, and the second group leaves for tornado rebuilding work in Henryville, Indiana, in a few hours.

Follow us here on the blog, or on twitter and instagram using hashtag #cardsasb

Thank you for your support of the students and staff who take this work week each year!

Amy+
(Chaplain, Episcopal Campus Ministry)

Final Day and Just the Beginning…

In many ways it is hard to believe the week is over and in many ways it is not. I am tired because this crew worked hard all week long. Several people told us as leaders that they were extremely impressed at how much this group of college students accomplished in 4 days work. And when I thinks about how many downed trees we cut up, how many limbs we hauled away, how much firewood we stacked, how much debris we removed from property, and how many other odd jobs we accomplished…I am impressed with each one of them too!

But that is really just the beginning of the whole thing. Each day they took care of their community in amazing ways – preparing meals, cleaning up, watching each other’s back while working, and leading us spiritually. One of the students said to me last night, “This was a good year, Steve, I really like our group this year.” Last night we sat around and talked when we were all tired and should have gone to bed. I just seemed that no one wanted to leave the group.

It really is an amazing privilege to spend any time with students like this and these trips are always amazing!

This morning we are up and getting ready to travel back home to the ‘Ville. And our last evening devotions were centered around what we will take back with us. After hearing them share, I am excited to take them back home and looking forward to seeing what they accomplish for the kingdom in the future.

Look out Church! Look out world! Here they come! And I’m willing to bet you will be impressed at what they accomplish as well.

Day Three – I am wiped!

It’s hard to believe we only have half a day’s worth of work left before we head back to Louisville – and it’s even harder to believe the amount we have accomplished in three days’ time. We have been working in and around the same few streets all week here in Madison County, and have collectively hauled the equivalent of a forest to the road for the county to pick up. My forearms are scarred, my body is exhausted, and my cheeks are burnt, but it has been worth every single ache and pain.

One of my roommates in Louisville has always urged me to live my life by doing small things with great love. She isn’t here with us in Alabama, but her voice has been in my ears with those words every single day. This week, I have found myself cleaning mud off dollhouse furniture, chasing down a Rottweiler, picking cotton-ball-sized pieces of insulation from bushes, dragging limbs and logs across entire properties, and crawling around the ground trying to pick up every piece of glass I could see – none of which, by the way, are ways I would particularly like to spend my time. Somehow, though, I found myself ready and willing each morning to get up at the crack of dawn and cover myself in dirt and sap for eight hours in the heat of the Alabama sun. Why? Well, for one, the love I have seen since we arrived here on Sunday has been absolutely inspiring. The people we have been helping are incredible; many of them have lost most of their belongings and do not have much to offer, but at the sight of our willingness to work they begin to offer whatever they do have to make us comfortable and express their gratitude for our work. We have had strangers stop and ask us how they can help – we stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom and the owner even offered us free supplies. The people of Copeland Presbyterian where we are staying have extended the most hospitable hand we could have ever asked for, and one of or worksite coordinators, Smokey, has even offered his own home for our use so we can take hot showers after a long day of work. None of these actions are particularly enormous offerings of love, but every single one means the world to its recipient. It truly is incredible.

Today, our reflection team asked us to select one word to attribute to our experience so far. I chose “humility,” because this trip – just as ASB always does – has reminded me of the importance of humbling myself for the good of others. I almost stayed home this break, because I was scared that if I didn’t relax for a week I would freak out and burn out at the end of the semester. However, after much convincing, here I am, spending my spring break, not on myself, but on the life of someone else. Not only are we down here cleaning up properties and working our bodies to the bone, but we’re giving these people hope that life will move forward and improve after these disasters. I get so bogged down in my own life and studies sometimes that I forget that the world is bigger than I am. This break has given me a chance to spend one week of my life helping others complete jobs that might take them months on their own. This is our small action of great love that we are sharing with the people of Alabama: sacrifice, humility, and hard work for a short time with an impact that results in so much more than just a clean backyard. We are helping put lives back together; you can see it on the faces of the people we meet. So maybe I am going to stress out in a month because I don’t have the time I would like to finish my term papers. And maybe I am going to have to give up a weekend to hole myself in the library away from the world on very little sleep so I can finish everything that is due during finals. And it is true that I could have jumped ahead on my schoolwork this week to avoid that later. But at what cost? Being in Alabama reminds me that there is more to life than grades and due dates. I am helping people, loving people, spreading hope. And I get to do that while having a blast with my friends, well then hey, I will take an all-nighter or two at the end of the semester.

Erin Sheehy

Chainsaw before & after

This trailer was surrounded by downed trees when we arrived. Our chainsaw was not cooperating and we were making very slow progress. We decided we really needed to just buy a new one and thought maybe we could crowd-source to cover the cost, so we posted our need to facebook & twitter. Within 90 minutes we had the $380 needed for a new, heavier-duty chainsaw. It made quick work of those trees.  Thanks to everyone who pledged a donation!

Year Three (and counting?): Why I Love ASB

Every night during ASB we have a reflection time led by one of the student groups.  One group asked a question my first time participating in ASB that I ask myself every year that I go: Why did you decide to come on this trip?  Every year my answer is basically the same, with a few shifts that reflect what is going on in my life.

This is my answer this year:

Instead of going on ASB last year, I visited Washington DC with my dad, touring the city and law schools.  Though it was nice to spend time with my dad that week, it felt like something was missing from my spring break experience.

ASB this year is my chance to put the law books away for a week (though I may sneak a peek at my outlines a few times) and literally get my hands dirty doing something rewarding and productive for another person.  All semester I focus on what I need to do to get my assignments written, my casebooks read, job applications prepared, etc.  This is the week when I focus less on myself and more on other people.

Sleeping on narrow, (not terribly comfortable) cots all week and clearing a seemingly endless amount of debris during the day has given me some perspective on how blessed I truly am.  Though I might grumble about some of the work thoughout the week, I am glad that I get to be here to spend my break helping people who have lost their homes (and, in some cases more than that), in the storms that swept across Alabama last April and again just a couple weeks ago.

Departure Day

Departure day is always filled with busyness – have we done all we need to do to be ready to go, have I packed everything, have I taken care of everything at home I need to take care of before I’m gone for the week…and this year seems even more so.  My dad died this past week so I am worried if I’ve done all I need to do to handle that and what that will mean for me this week.  And to top it all off – Spring Break once again hits on daylight saving time and springing forward has cost us an hour. 

But even with all of these worries I am fully aware of one thing.  Once we get to Alabama and get to work I will have an amazing experience and I will soon realize that I am in a position for these to be my concerns and worries.  

The students and campus ministers of the Interfaith Center at UofL will spend the week working with families and individuals who worry about what life will be like after a tornado – my home is gone, all my photos and mementos are lost, maybe even someone I love has been lost to a natural disaster which seems all too unnatural.

My prayer this morning as I prepare to leave is that I will be able to get outside myself this week and see God in the students who I travel with, in the work that is being done by God’s people in places torn a part by storms, and in the people I have a chance to meet this week.

 

ASB 2012!!!

N. Alabama and Camp Caleb (Appalachia) here we come!!!

Fundraising efforts, team building and supply shopping are in full force as we prepare for this year’s trip into the “mission field.”  We have been planning for months and the day is almost here.

We leave this coming Sunday for Northern Alabama and Appalachia.  Our work continues in Appalachia as CAP works to help families in poverty.  Northern Alabama feels even closer to home as we listen to stories from our neighbors in KY and IN still trying to dig out from this past week’s devastating storms.

We have heard from our contacts in AL and know that Athens (where we will be staying) also fell victim once again to this past week’s storms.  We will likely be doing debris removal before we can even start on the damage from last year.

We are asking now that you join the prayer we began as we first starting planning this year’s trip.  Your prayers and support are key to these students and the experience they are about to live.

We’ll keep you posted on happenings – check back often!

 

Here comes the sun!

By Annie

Today was the last day at our jobsites, and many of us fought back tears as we left the houses and residents that have made our spring breaks so meaningful. For the first time all week, the forecast was correct—although the day started out foggy, by eleven the sun had risen over the mountains and warmed the earth. Hammering may be hotter when the sun is out, but no one complained about wearing short sleeves!

We worked through the day, finishing projects and tidying the site. Workfest lasts for three weeks, and we’re only here for the second week, so many of our projects will be finished next week by another group of college students. It can be difficult not to see the finished product of our work, but as we are reminded in the prayer of Oscar Romero, “The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.” We are grateful to have had the opportunity to play a small part in God’s work in Appalachia, but look forward to going home, to more opportunities every day to participate in His plan.

The evening wrapped up with a delicious thanksgiving dinner prepared by the magnificent cooking ladies; we feasted on sweet potato casserole, turkey, dressing, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and peach cobbler. Many of our residents joined us for the meal. After dinner, the UofL group led devotion, a beautiful reflection on the gifts of Appalachia, prepared by Mandy. Then we shared our experiences with one another through a skit and song competition, judged by the kitchen ladies. The Red Team won, and then we said our final goodbyes to the families. To end the evening, we shared our thoughts and thanks with one another in a closing reflection.

Here’s what happened at our individual sites today!

Chris: We went to Dairy Queen after we were done working just to celebrate. We put up all the walls today and started on the roof, although I and a few others kept working on the ground.

Mandy : Finished windows and finally got to put up siding after all the challenging, hair-pulling prep work!

Gwen: Finished prepping for siding, and started on the siding.. Then after we were done, we went to visit Butcher Hollow, where Loretta Lynn is from. There, we visited the general store, which is actually an old coal company store. We could see the housing the coal company built, which has been reworked, but people still live there. You can really tell that they’re the same. It was a pretty cool experience.

Sarah K: We finished the porch at Elmo’s today!

Sarah F: is asleep at the time of this writing. She had a good day though : )

Annie: We finished the bathroom we worked on all week, and it looks great! At the end of the day, our crew leaders Jeff and Phil took us to the Black Barn Store, where we snacked on ice cream!

Tomorrow we head out right after breakfast! Please pray for a safe trip home.

Love,

Annie and the CAP team