Mission Trip (s) 2025 |
Asheville Trip Blog
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Asheville Mission Trip
After we were down to Asheville area in November 2024, we knew we needed to come back as a mission team in home repair. We first tried to reach out to Beloved Asheville since we had talked to one of their directors in November, however, after 10 attempts we realized we needed to find another group. In reality, Beloved Asheville was looking for experienced contractors. While we have a lot of experience under our belt from our many trips, we aren't experienced contractors.
We reached out to Hammer and Heart. They are a much smaller organization and one that is looking for any help they can find. There is only one challenge, they only use volunteers for outside work. All of their inside work is done by experienced contractors. Ok, we better pray for sunshine as we went having no backup plan if we got rained out.
Our supervisor was Paul and Ben (the director). Paul had us replacing porch steps with a 36' ramp. No pressure, but we needed to get it done in one day. Paul didn't let us have any "free" time. He saw you taking a break, you were put to work. That wasn't a bad thing because we really needed to rock and roll. We learned to drink water in one hand while using a drill in the other. On this trip, we were also ramp stainers. Every ramp they build (and they build a number), they come back with a group to stain. The ramp we were assigned to stain was a very, very long ramp. But the staining group knocked it off Hammer and Hearts list.
Our final job for this trip was mobile home skirting. We have done this before, but it's been years, so we needed a refresher course. One home that we worked at was Vicky's mobile home. Vicky was staying with her brother and s-i-l across the street, so she got to watch everything we did. At one point, she came across to share her story. 3 years ago, she and her husband lost their home to fire. Then they lost their son (she didn't say how). Then her husband had a stroke. Then "The Storm" came and took their home again. Then in December, she lost her husband. So in 3 years, she lost her home twice, her son and her husband. She was in tears when she told us the story as us being at the house signified a new beginning for her in yet her 3rd home in 3 years.
The talk is that we hope to go back in 2026 because there is soooo much work that needs to occur. While we stayed in Asheville, our work was all in Swannanoa and Black Mountain. These are two places that were devasted by what happened.
We reached out to Hammer and Heart. They are a much smaller organization and one that is looking for any help they can find. There is only one challenge, they only use volunteers for outside work. All of their inside work is done by experienced contractors. Ok, we better pray for sunshine as we went having no backup plan if we got rained out.
Our supervisor was Paul and Ben (the director). Paul had us replacing porch steps with a 36' ramp. No pressure, but we needed to get it done in one day. Paul didn't let us have any "free" time. He saw you taking a break, you were put to work. That wasn't a bad thing because we really needed to rock and roll. We learned to drink water in one hand while using a drill in the other. On this trip, we were also ramp stainers. Every ramp they build (and they build a number), they come back with a group to stain. The ramp we were assigned to stain was a very, very long ramp. But the staining group knocked it off Hammer and Hearts list.
Our final job for this trip was mobile home skirting. We have done this before, but it's been years, so we needed a refresher course. One home that we worked at was Vicky's mobile home. Vicky was staying with her brother and s-i-l across the street, so she got to watch everything we did. At one point, she came across to share her story. 3 years ago, she and her husband lost their home to fire. Then they lost their son (she didn't say how). Then her husband had a stroke. Then "The Storm" came and took their home again. Then in December, she lost her husband. So in 3 years, she lost her home twice, her son and her husband. She was in tears when she told us the story as us being at the house signified a new beginning for her in yet her 3rd home in 3 years.
The talk is that we hope to go back in 2026 because there is soooo much work that needs to occur. While we stayed in Asheville, our work was all in Swannanoa and Black Mountain. These are two places that were devasted by what happened.
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WARM Mission Trip
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WARM Mission Trip Blog
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In August, we headed to Wrightsville Beach, NC for our week with WARM staying as guests to Little Chapel on the Boardwalk. After last year, we checked the weather and thankfully the tropics were quiet. Phew.
We were looking forward to our "quiet" day on Sunday where we mentally prepared ourselves for the week and worshipped with Little Chapel on the beach and then in their Sanctuary. While that did happen, our Sunday wasn't quite like we hoped as we had a team member have a medical emergency requiring a detour to the ER and subsequent admission to the hospital.
Our first todo was for a couple that was 45 miles away from us. We needed to paint their soffit and fascia of their house as well as have their wooden garage door fixed. If you're familiar with soffit and fascia, it is the underside of the overhang of your roof. Thus all our work was ladder work. We got this assignment as they tried with 4 other groups and they all bailed on the job. Drew (WARM's director of construction) knows us and knew we wouldn't bail on the job. We might complain, mutter and need a pep talk every once in a while, but in typical SMUCC fashion, we conquered the job.
Our second job was downtown Wilmington. We never were introduced to the home owner, but we referred to him as Mr 17th St (the home was on 17th St). There we were replacing the kitchen and living room floor. The home was a two story home and was 950 sq ft. 950 sq ft isn't a big place to be if you have 11 people that are trying to work in it. As we removed the items from the living room to put on the front lawn to give us room, an end table fell apart due to age.
As we continued to work to repair the subflooring so the luan could go on, we found that the freezer was rotting out the floor joist and the subflooring. All new subflooring was put in. In the kitchen, they removed many, many layers of flooring and the floor really was in bad shape. While they would want to do more to fix the kitchen floor, there is only so far you can go in pealing the layers of the onion before you say, STOP, what can we manageably get done. In the kitchen, the floor was repaired as best as could be and vinyl plank put down.
In the living room, we couldn't put back a leaking freezer to rot out new flooring. We also had an end table that was literally dust. Off we went shopping and brought home two new end tables and a brand new freezer. The smile and the surprised look on Mr 17th St when he saw what we had done made it worth the effort. In his words "I'm 76 years old and had given up on anyone caring about us. Today, you restored my faith that people do care".
We were looking forward to our "quiet" day on Sunday where we mentally prepared ourselves for the week and worshipped with Little Chapel on the beach and then in their Sanctuary. While that did happen, our Sunday wasn't quite like we hoped as we had a team member have a medical emergency requiring a detour to the ER and subsequent admission to the hospital.
Our first todo was for a couple that was 45 miles away from us. We needed to paint their soffit and fascia of their house as well as have their wooden garage door fixed. If you're familiar with soffit and fascia, it is the underside of the overhang of your roof. Thus all our work was ladder work. We got this assignment as they tried with 4 other groups and they all bailed on the job. Drew (WARM's director of construction) knows us and knew we wouldn't bail on the job. We might complain, mutter and need a pep talk every once in a while, but in typical SMUCC fashion, we conquered the job.
Our second job was downtown Wilmington. We never were introduced to the home owner, but we referred to him as Mr 17th St (the home was on 17th St). There we were replacing the kitchen and living room floor. The home was a two story home and was 950 sq ft. 950 sq ft isn't a big place to be if you have 11 people that are trying to work in it. As we removed the items from the living room to put on the front lawn to give us room, an end table fell apart due to age.
As we continued to work to repair the subflooring so the luan could go on, we found that the freezer was rotting out the floor joist and the subflooring. All new subflooring was put in. In the kitchen, they removed many, many layers of flooring and the floor really was in bad shape. While they would want to do more to fix the kitchen floor, there is only so far you can go in pealing the layers of the onion before you say, STOP, what can we manageably get done. In the kitchen, the floor was repaired as best as could be and vinyl plank put down.
In the living room, we couldn't put back a leaking freezer to rot out new flooring. We also had an end table that was literally dust. Off we went shopping and brought home two new end tables and a brand new freezer. The smile and the surprised look on Mr 17th St when he saw what we had done made it worth the effort. In his words "I'm 76 years old and had given up on anyone caring about us. Today, you restored my faith that people do care".
