Old Union 2024 Mission Trip - July 26, 2024

 Friday - July 26, 2024

Today is Friday!  TGIF.  This day started out rather cloudy with a mist hanging over the surrounding mountain tops.  And ...oops, I'm sorry, this is starting to sound like a broken record.  I'm beginning to think a lot of mornings start off like that around here in Buckhorn.  I was hoping to see the sun come up over the mountain tops just once.  

During breakfast, Pastor Peter showed us a video on his lap top of his motorcyle ride at the "Tail of the Dragon" in TN while he was on his sabbatical a few years ago.  It is a very windy road, much like what we have been driving on this week in Buckhorn.

This morning we woke earlier than the other days to be ready to leave at 8:30 a.m.  A few of us stayed behind and went down to the gym while the others went up to Chevies, KY to the building we had worked at on Monday to pick up the remainder of the boxes, the ones leftover from yesterday.  The delivery team consisted of Geoff, Lorene, Dave, Carl, Tim and Judy.  (Judy is the woman who is in charge of the Resource Center at Buckhorn Elementary/High School.)  The folks that were on the gym team to sort the boxes delivered yesterday were Pastor Peter, Mary Rae, Eric, Charles, Sally and myself (Clark).  The "gym team" organized the boxes by clothes, crayons, pencils, backpacks, notebooks, binders, etc.  The "gym team" finished sorting and labeling the stacks of boxes just as the delivery team arrived with more.  (The "gym team" wasn't even able to take a break!)  It was easy to unload and put the boxes in their respective areas once they were better sorted.  By the time we were done, the gym was a mini version of Costco with school supplies.  After the work was completed, pictures were taken of our Mission Team in front of the Log Cathedral as well as in front of the supplies we had sorted and boxed this week, now much closer to the school.

Judy brought us some T-shirts (purple Buckhorn T-shirts).  The purple T-shirts' front said B3: Bold  Buckhorn Believers.  On the back of the T-shirts, the Bible verse is "Two are better than one...a threefold cord is not quickly broken"  Ecclesiastes 4:9,12.  After which, we had to just move a few more boxes that housed graduation decorations from the church to the gym.  Oh! I forgot to mention, while we were still at the gym, we had two visitors.  The first visitor was the familiar small black and white dog that roams the neighborhood and Zaiden, a young 13 year old boy that had come to our first and third day camp.  Earlier this morning, Judy and Zaiden had an opportunity to visit the school's rebuilding project.

 While in our prayer circle with Judy, she told us that some Presbyterian churches adopt Buckhorn teachers through the year.  These churches help the teachers get the necessary items needed for their classrooms.  The items the Presbyterian churches provide are items to help the teachers make their classrooms more inviting to the students.  Such items could be bookcases, or supply closets.  We all gave big hugs to Carl has he now had to leave our group in order to go to Ohio.

Pastor Peter, Sally, Dave, Charles and I along with Judy, drove to Pam's house.  Pam is a local resident that is dealing with cancer throughout her body.  She seems to be keeping a positive attitude and told us she likes prayers from everyone.  She has a strong faith as well as believing in the power of prayer.  She has had various family members pass away from various kinds of cancers.  The medicine she is currently taking is making her very sick.  The reason we visited Pam was because Judy suggested that we pray with her and do the laying on of hands.  The four of us who were chosen to go were chosen as we represented 4 different churches from Beaver-Butler Presbytery and Pittsburgh Presbytery.  Since Pam appreciates prayers, won't you please say a prayer or two for her and her 15 year old son?

When we got back to the dorm, Tim and Geoff were already down in the church basement cleaning the walls again.  In fact, they were down there past lunchtime.  Speaking of lunchtime, Lorene had found plenty of leftovers for us to have for lunch.  (Tonight's dinner will be at the Buckhorn Lodge that is located in Buckhorn State Park.)  

At this writing time, in the early afternoon, four of our crew are playing the game of Life.  Mary Rae is reading and Pastor Peter is working on his Sunday sermon while I have my trusty assistant, Sally, helping me start this blog.  Finally after all week asking, she got me to start this earlier in the day so I didn't have her up so late at night.  After all, while the guys napped after working, Sally helped Lorene with dinner.

Speaking of which I did take a little nap this afternoon.  Pastor Peter started devotions before dinner so that we could spend more time at Buckhorn Lodge and afterwards entertainment.  Carl had to be with us on cell phone because he was driving to Finlay, OH.  God Bless You Carl. The devotions were about Paul's letter to the Corinthians:  1 Cor 1:26 - 2:5.  Paul says that all kinds of apostles are chosen by God, including those considered to be foolish, weak, or despised.  So we do not need to be ashamed of our weaknesses, or too boastful of our supposed strengths.  Pastor Peter asked us missioneers to think about and answer 3 questions:

1.  Write down what we learned about ourselves, God and the world this week?

2.  What can we take away from this week that we learned?

3.  And to think about one significant event or observant we experienced about this week.

We are planning on giving a donation to the Family Service Center as that is who hosted us this week.  We are also donating all of our unused food this week to a family that had a house fire this past Tuesday, since we had plenty of food items left over.  The Family Service Center provided lunch to the kids and us Tuesday through Thursday. Monday, Judy bought us pizza, and we had the potluck dinner at the church on Wednesday.  And today we had leftovers for lunch from our delicious dinners we had each evening.

To help sum it up and see how God works in our lives, Judy didn't know we were coming until shortly before we arrived (maybe a week or two before).  Judy had been praying for how could she get the children's school supplies sorted and moved down from Chavies all the way to Buckhorn.  She would have had to enlist her husband and son to help her, but the amount of the supplies she had would have taken them much longer than a week to get packed and sorted and boxed.  It is like God allowed us to show up just in time. 

For this evening's dinner we treated to our usual night out, this time at the fancy lodge at Buckhorn State Park, above the lake where the guys went swimming Wednesday afternoon.  In the same building was a really neat memorial to the families and buildings that were affected when Buck Horn Lake was first built and flooded.  Little models showed the family houses and small stores and a sawmill that were torn down before the water filled the lake.  In the dining hall we had a buffet-style meal where we were joined by Judy and Pastor Jim!!  On other mission trips we rarely had contact with the local residents and even the church staff.  Not so this one.  We have had ample visits from both, and of course working with the kids was a real bonus, since most of the work was geared toward them.  After the dinner we were treated to a round of miniature golf (also near the lodge) and Judy even stayed to play with us.  Talk about Souther hospitality.  Pastor Jim  had other pressing matters to attend.  

Once again this is (James) Clark signing off with my typist Sally.  God Bless y'all for keeping up with us and helping us with your prayers.  Hope to see many of you when we get back home tomorrow.  See you next week Laurie, keep the faith Bob.  Have fun Carl.  Goodnite y'all.