Coming Back a Changed Person

I know its been a while since my last post.....but I've been up to a lot of things, and thought that now would probobly be the best time to explain everything. So, from July 5th, until July 13, I went away with my church do do something called A.S.P (Appalachia Service Project). It doesn't sound like much, but what we did there was to help make repairs on homes for familes in Appalachia who can't afford to have it done, or who are unable to do it themselves. Because that area is such a poor part of the country, they are always looking for help, and I thought that this was the perfect idea to actually change something in the world. Anyways......

No matter what, and no matter who goes on the trip, everyone has some sort of fear before they leave that the trip will either stink, or that they won't make any friends, or that it will just be a miserable week. So when everyone gets into their giant white "sketch vans" as we call it, everyone seems to bit a bit excited for it, but still don't know what to expect. Once we made it down there, it was still almost the same thing. Nobody was talking to anyone from other groups, and everyone seemed to just go off with their friends, or walk around as if they were board out of their mind. After a week though, everyone from all the groups seemed to come together, I can personally tell you that I've made friends with people that I will continue to talk to for a long time.

Besides going down to Logan County West Virginia to make friends with people, our church also went down there to help to rebuild houses for people who are unable to do it themselves. I have to tell you that it is a very humbling experience. Speaking for people in my area, we take so many things for granite.

I was lucky enough to work on two houses when I was down there, and was able to help two separate families. The first family that I went to was Brenda and Randy. Their house had previously gotten into a fire, and what they had was destroyed. That wasn't even the worst part. The worst part about everything was that when they were trying to escape from the fire, they tried to open the back metal door, and the door knob came off. They were trapped in a tiny room in the middle of a fire until a fire fighter came to kick open the door. I can't even imagine how scary that must have been. At the house, we finished up some of the work done by previous weeks by putting up baseboards around the carpet. The other thing that we did for this family, was to put in the new back door. It seemed to me that it was a start of something new for that family, because the door that had once been the reason for them almost dieing, was now gone, and replaced with a new, better door. After we were done with these two projects. Brenda and Randy said the sweetest thing. They said that they knew what we were doing was good, and that there were people out in Appalachia who needed our help more then they needed it. It just amazed me that these people were willing to give up our help in order for us to help someone else.


That was a picture of my second house that I worked on. The family here was a 17-year-old mother of two, and a 21 year old father. Since there are only a certain amount of work sites, and that we were already done with ours, we were "double crewed" with another group from Tennessee. When I walked inside the trailer, it made me very sad. The trailer was in such bad condition, that it was unlivable. The floors were rotten, the walls had holes in them, and the roof seemed as if it was about to break. We knew that this was too much on, so our crew took on fixing the rotten floor, while the other group took on the task of underpinning the trailer (meaning to make sure that no animals or rain is able to get trapped under the trailer and ruin it even more).

By the end of the week it was amazing. Not only did we get all of the work done that we needed, but both crews seem to work perfectly together, almost as if we've known each other for years. I met some amazing people, such as Blaire, Mary, Alison, and Josh, and wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

By the time that I got back yesterday, I have to say that I was a changed person. Because of the things that I saw down there, I don't think that I'm going to be the same person. It's such an amazing feeling to see the expression on the family's face when we do things for them. Even the littlest things. For example, one day when we were working Jerica, along with her mother went out to get a refridge. When then got back from the used/dent store with it and slid it into place, they opened the freezer and looked inside. All of a sudden her face lite up like we've never seen before, and she said "I can't believe that we actually have an electric ice maker!" An electric ice maker. Something that everyone takes for granite every day, and one thing that made her smile from cheek to cheek.

If any one of you have the chance to do something like this in the future, I would highly recommend it. It doesn't take a lot to make a big difference in someones life.

~Chris

P.S: I just posted a new video over on my youtube page if you wanna check it out. Don't forget to subscribe and follow me on twitter! :)