Reflections from Heidi

Hello community of faith. We have just finished the fifth day of our trip and our second day of servanthood. Today we accomplished a ton of work. One team laid linoleum in one home while the other team finished the floorboards, and framing three walls. The first home belongs to a man moved to the area to be by family. He is extremely grateful for the help and is very friendly. He spent time talking to the team and sharing his collection of keychains from places he has visited. The second family is a little more shy but come out and watch us as we build. They are becoming more comfortable with us now and will talk for a bit. That house has ten people living there – four generations. The room we are building will be for the granddaughter and great grandson.

Just a couple of random thoughts I want to share. First I know there has been a question of why would I want to take the youth clear to Kentucky when there is so much need in our own community. I have wanted the youth to see that there is not really a stereotypical poor person. They have worked in the Denver area with COFU, DENUM and URBAN PEAK seeing how poverty is closer than they thought. They have also seen world poverty through their work with World Vision. Several of the youth did hands on work on a Native American Reservation seeing how poverty is rampant throughout that community. So my goal was for the kids to see how poverty can be generational- much to my surprise I was the one who was SHOCKED at the level of poverty in this community. The Beverly area is the 5th poorest county in AMERICA. The median income is only $19000. The conditions of many homes in the area are complete disarray with windows missing, doors hanging on hinges, mold growing up walls, holes in siding that go through into the house, leaking septic tanks. The house we are working on had an area that had burned down and everything was left lying on the ground. We found broken glass, burnt clothes, toys and rotting carpet to name a few. It was completely heartbreaking. One side effect of the poverty is the absolute feeling of hopelessness by people in this community.
After seeing all of this my admiration of the Red Bird Mission has grown. They do so much for the people in this community. Tonight we had the opportunity to tour the Red Bird Mission School which provides a Christian based education for children K-12. The school has 230 students 13 who live in the dormitories. It is a fully accredited school that has a 98% graduation rate and a 68% that go onto higher education. We also had the opportunity to tour the medical clinic that also serves as food bank, GED services, computer classes, preschool and dental clinic. Clients pay on a sliding scale so most services are paid by Medicare, Medicaid or grants. The work they are doing on the campus is truly the light of Christ in a darkened world.

My second thought is I want you to know how awesome our team has been. The adults are truly giving of themselves with each other and the youth. The youth have been outgoing and great in meeting the youth from other states and inviting them to play basketball and football. They also volunteered to help an elderly group with dinner clean up even though they had done it the night before. All of this has been on their own without any prodding by the adults. We should all be so proud of what great kids they all are.

I pray that you are all fine and I also pray that as a community we be open in our hearts and our minds to the acts of mission that are available to us so that we can keep making positive Christ driven changes in our hurting world.

God Bless you all
Heidi


More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/patc303/RedbirdMissionTrip02

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