Return from Harlan

by Mars on Jul. 19, 2010, under Uncategorized

I’ve spent the past week+ with Capuchin Franciscan Youth & Family Ministries (CYFM) in Harlan County, KY, where poverty is everywhere. A quick rundown of the trip:

Okay, a quick rundown of the trip:

Vacation Bible School was provided to the local children, free of charge. The children (and their parents) come back each year, saying that it is the highlight of their summer.

An outreach van traveled across the county, distributing food, clothing, cleaning supplies, toys – just about everything – to whoever needed it.

A group of teens helped out at a seniors’ nursing home, to give company to those who are sometimes forgotten. Among the compliments given, one elderly man said the teenager he spent time with was the daughter he never had.

There were manual labor 5 work sites, with amount of work needing to be done ranging from repairing a roof to adding a 28×10 foot extension to a house to repairing a porch deck whose flooring had rotted out.

The house extension was done for a mother of two. With the extension, her kids (15 and 3) have a bedroom they can call theirs.

The roof repairs stopped some massive leaks. More importantly, though, the owner of the house said he was contemplating suicide up until our group had come, as he couldn’t stand living in a house so broken down. He is now writing a song about the group titled “Angels on the rooftop”.

The deck repairs (my site) were admittedly not the most pressing repairs. However, they were done for a lovely woman named Jane and her husband Hurlan, who was confined to a wheelchair, and the deck had the only ramp to get him in and out of the house. In addition, the roofing was rotting away and some repairs needed to be done there as well. Unfortunately, Hurlan passed away due to pneumonia shortly before we arrived for work Friday morning to finish the job. However, not all was lost. Jane does now have a beautiful deck where she can safely enjoy the hot summer days in the shade.

Here are a few pictures from the site