Oakdale Emory - United Methodist Church

 

ASP MISSION TRIP 2010

 

In late June, 28 youth and 13 adults from OEUMC traveled to Clinchco, Virginia, to repair several homes.

 

Team 1 consisted of Alex Littleford, Dasha Bukreyeva, Arianna Huff, Luke Colliton, Matt Stitzlein and adult leaders Steve Patterson and Diana Schneider. Miss Sue has very bad asthma and allergies and lives in a trailer that needed a roof over the front stairs/ramp, trim in the bedroom and a platform and stairs for the back door. This team worked diligently and finished the back porch, installed baseboards in the back bedroom and hallway, and dug eight holes (24-inch deep x 12-inch wide) for the roof over the porch.

 

 

Team 2 was made up of Scott Dawson, Katie Lomax, Tracy Schmelter, Lauren Stitzlein, Taylor Young, and adult leaders Jim Markwood and Eileen Buzy. This team was truly blessed to work with an amazing family. The mom, dad and their 15-year-old son became a second family to our team. Our job was to dig a 100-foot drainage ditch and fill it with nine tons of gravel! Every day when we pulled up, our family came out and joined in with all the hard work. By the end of the week, after a great deal of hard work and fun (yes, fun!) the ditch was completed and a wonderful sense of satisfaction was felt by all. But what surprised our team (and our family) the most was the sense of sadness we felt about having to say goodbye to our new friends. It was difficult to say who felt most blessed by the experience, but it was obvious that God truly touched everyone’s heart this week.

 

 

Team 3 included Raymond Fanara, Laura Schneider, Joshua Settlemire, Nick Chisholm and adult leaders Brian van Winkle, Gregg Braker and Joan Aebig. We were up to the challenge of constructing the first phase of a wheelchair ramp: a 5x5-foot platform off the existing deck followed by the first ramp. Mrs. K., a 40-year-old wife and mother, is in hospice care at her home. The husband, a disabled mine worker, has difficulty getting his wife into the car for her chemotherapy treatments. Mr. K spent quite a bit of time outside with us, discussing the project, lending us tools, telling us stories, laughing and enjoying each others’ company. Additional church groups will complete this 47-foot ramp in July. We pray that the family will feel that God has blessed them through our service to Him.

 

 

Team 4 consisted of Brendan Kelly, Tori Rhoades, Jake Buzy, Andrew Braker and adult leaders Dave Young and Andy Lomax. We worked on the home of Ed, who lived by himself in a relatively new but small home. This group’s major project was the filling of three Gabion Baskets.  These “baskets” were 3 feet wide, 3 feet tall and 12 feet long. It took 18 tons of football-sized stones to complete the job. Some other projects included building downspouts, installing a dead bolt into a new door, completing the inside finish work on the door and painting the room. Surprisingly, our work was completed by Wednesday, so the team moved on to a house owned by the “chicken and dumpling lady.” For the remaining two days, we installed insulation in her floor.

 

 

Team 5 was nicknamed Bittersweet and included Todd Holbert, Rachel Quinn, Jack Kelly, Gabby Esparagerra, Andrew Krotchko and adult leaders Terry Stitzlien and Mark Aebig. Miss Cathy lives in an older mobile home and her project had just been approved by ASP to start. We were the first crew to begin work. The job was to tear down existing exterior siding, pull out wet insulation, paint new T1-11 siding and framing lumber, mate the newly painted 2x4s onto the deteriorated ones in the walls, re-insulate, enclose the opening in a vapor-barrier construction fabric and re-attach new, painted T1-11 siding.  We were working in her front yard—in full view of all her neighbors—so we kept the site picked up each day. Once begun, we found more water damage than anticipated and all the old framing we exposed was rotted and had to be removed and replaced entirely. The walls were first supported by a pair of notched 2x6 “kickers” anchored to stakes dug into the ground. As part of the project, we had to take out a window and shutters, work around a front entry door and attach and re-wire an exterior electrical outlet. We finished an 8’x8’ section of her home during our week. On the last day we removed another section only to find the damage extended beyond the framing and into the band joist and floor supports. This was worse than what we found in the first section. We put up the kickers again for safety and stapled plastic over the openings. The Center Staff visited that afternoon to assess the extent of the damage and will have to make some decisions about how to proceed with the next groups. Through it all, Miss Cathy was delightfully talkative, apparently unfazed by all the noise and repair work going on and very happy to see some improvements made to her home. She got us pizzas on our last day there.

 

 

Team 6 consisted of Brendan Littleford, Randall Stewart, Meredith Russell, Nika Lilley, Kyle Ryan and adult leaders Carolyn Quinn and Mark Huff. We served a couple in their early thirties with a teenage son. They had done as much work on the home as they could, but had to stop because of money issues. Our team insulated the walls and hung drywall in the kitchen and laundry room. In the kitchen, the existing floor was sagging and had a hole that was covered with a piece of plywood. We had to remove the subflooring and shore up the sagging portion by adding new supports between the joists. In order to fix the hole, we cut a larger hole to insert new supports between the joists. Then, we installed new subflooring. The kitchen was now ready for the next team to install the floor tiling and paint the drywall.