Post #1: Letters from the Senior High Mission Trip to Hamlin, WV 2008

The Hornets team was Mrs. Mosby, Wynn, Robert, Marisa, Chelsea, and Trent from Epiphany. We also had Mike, Breanne, Lindsey, Brian, and Tom from Freeland, Michigan. Our entire team clicked right away. Our first project was to finish painting a trailer, because the group before us had not quite finished it yet. This trailer belonged to a man who drives 2 hours to and from the hospital everyday to get his chemo treatment. A man whose yard and house are full of junk. A man who would take care of these things if he had time, but something always comes up to forestall him. In this case, a cancer that requires so much care. What we thought would take an hour or two ended up lasting all day. We found that there was much more to do, such as scrubbing off all the caked-on dirt and algae from the skirting around the base of the trailer. Even though we walked up to this house almost finished, we were shocked at how much of a difference our day of work made. This sense of completion inspired us and kept us going when we were given our next project: another trailer that would give a homeless person somewhere to live. The Firefighters team also worked on a trailer in this “homeless trailer park”. This was a group of several trailers that a man named Vernon looks after. With dogs running all over the place, and people sitting on porches with each other, it seemed like a great community for people without money for homes to be a part of. The trailer we worked on was very dirty and green from all the algae. Our first day on this project consisted of scrubbing off all the algae with rags and sponges. Once this was completed we worked on the trim, painting it white. The next day we nearly painted all of the house a very nice-looking sage color. We had all intentions of finishing the painting and putting on final touches on Thursday, however the weather didn’t cooperate. Thursday we had rain, so we played “Bear, Ninja, Cowboy” (a variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors) to see what team had to do which chore around the site. Since we lost both times, we were stuck cleaning the shower rooms. We thought it wouldn’t take more than an hour, but it turned into a whole day’s project. The boy’s showers were mopped and cleaned in half an hour. The girl’s showers took much longer. We couldn’t mop until we had “Shop-Vac”ed all the standing water out, only to notice that the floor’s paint was peeling left and right. So we got paint scrapers and scraped chips of cracking latex paint from the floor (a total of 2 garbage bags full). Once that was done, we broke out the Drain-o, Comet, and Tilex and went to town on every square inch of this shower house. When we were done, the room smelled and looked fresh and clean, probably the first time it had been all summer. (written by Trent Compton)