Harlan, KY

Greetings from Harlan, KY! Our first week of mission trip programming has gone really well! There are six of us leading the Catholic Mission Trips this summer. Our first week is all together to finish training with the first high school group. We'll be splitting up into teams of two next week and going to different work sites across the country. My team is heading to Joplin, MO for two weeks, then a Zuni Indian Reservation in New Mexico for three and South Texas for the last three weeks. I love living in community with these five other women. I'm the only guy, but after Ellie and Delaina the Holy Spirit has prepared me well for living with sisters. There's a lot of giving, which might be the best way to describe it.

This is the Cranks Creek Survival Center Harlan, KY where we all sleep, eat and do programming.

Zach, Johnny and Rebecca

The kids love attention, so things can get goofy

Every family is so welcoming an honest. They make lunch for us and let us use anything in their house. No personal boundaries. 

Each missionary leads a different work site. I work with most of the guys from St. Joseph's High School in Brownsville, TX. We've all bonded really well and today is only the half-way point in their mission trip.

whoops...

Only so many people can work on the floor at once, so we keep busy by going different neighbors on the street or "holler" (small community in a valley).

This is Teddy; we met him after our borrowed lawn mower broke. He fixed it for us and we were able to fix his ramp. He runs a local food pantry. He opened up about a termite problem last month and a let down from another Christian mission program. Plans changed and he wasn't able to get any help tearing out his walls. When we met him while trying to mow his mother's house, I had to explain that tearing out his walls was too big of a project for my guys. Instead we were able to look at the ramp for his wife.

Being a missionary is great we get to sit with people, see Jesus in them and give them hope that God has not forgotten them. God might not help us in the way we expect but in His time and His way. People disappoint and maybe we can't help Teddy, but then God will have another solution for him.
Catholic Mission Trips isn't focused on building a church, but the Church. Teddy said our presence told him that God had not given up on him, so he wasn't giving up on God!