Classic fish

For twelve years, my church has participated in the Appalachia Service Project. One week each summer, volunteers travel to Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia to repair or build homes for families.

At the age of sixteen, I went on my first volunteer project in West Virginia. On the night we arrived, we discovered that “our family” was living in a trailer that was in poor condition, no bigger than two parking spaces. A crew had been working on it for two weeks, but every time they finished one problem, another surfaced.

The staff soon decided that the only reasonable solution was to build a new house-something highly unusual but necessary under these circumstances. Normally the goal is to repair existing homes. “Our family” was overjoyed with their new house that was 20×30 foot with three bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen/family room.

On Tuesday of that week, while we all ate lunch together, I asked “our family’s” three boys, Josh, Eric and Ryan, “What do you want for your new room?” Anticipating posters, toys and other gadgets that children usually ask for, we were surprised when Josh, the oldest, responded, “I just want a bed.”

We were stunned. The boys had never slept in a bed. They were accustomed only to foam pads. That night we had a meeting and unanimously decided that beds would be the perfect gift. On Thursday night, a few adults in our group drove to the nearest city and bought beds and new bedding. They arranged for everything to be delivered on Friday.

Tags: The Pillow

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 5:29 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.