On Saturday, June 8th , 41 volunteers from Nebraska left on a bus for Sneedville, TN where they spent the next week repairing homes in Hancock County, the most economically deprived county in Tennessee and one of the ten lowest income counties in America. The trip, sponsored by the Arcadia United Methodist Church, was made up of volunteers from nineteen different communities in Nebraska (from Sutherland and Valentine on the west to Lincoln on the east), as well as an exchange student from Germany and a couple from Branson, MO. Participants ranged in age from thirteen to eighty-two. We were housed at a building owned by the Jubilee Project just south of Sneedville where our cooks provided the meals for the week. Like Nebraska, we had to deal with rain on and off for the week but it did not slow the progress of the work we set out to do.
Our team was divided into five or six groups each day and by the end of the week we had completed work on twelve different homes. The work itself consisted of many different projects which the families needed including: building handicapped accessible ramps; applying sealant on roofs; caulking of windows, doors, and floors; tearing out rotten floors and rebuilding them; replacing porch floor; building hand rails on porch steps; installing linoleum; replacing and installing bathroom stools and showers; building an addition onto a home to create an extra bedroom; installing additional doors and windows; creating an underground drainage pipe work to take water away from a home; installing chain link fence; cleaning gutters and yards; power washing and painting the outside of homes and painting inside; and installing and finishing drywall.
Another very significant role was providing spiritual and emotional encouragement to the members of the families. Some were suffering from grief in the loss of a spouse, some were recovering from sickness, some were members of broken homes with babies and small children…all in need of kind words and a listening ear. They had amazing stories to tell and we were blessed to be able not only to help them with physical needs but also to show empathy and understanding and share the love of Jesus. It was amazing to see how God worked through us to see lives changed in just the short span of one week.
Our team members were rewarded for their hard work on Saturday, June 15th, when we were able to stop on the way home and visit The Arc in Williamsburg, KY. That, too, was an amazing experience. We were also blessed to be treated to a travel break in Marysville, KS by a former Arcadian, Jeff Crist and his wife, Maureen. They provided us with ice cream and drinks, along with some good visiting. We arrived back home on Sunday, June 16th at 9:00 p.m., tired but so blessed.
The Arcadia United Methodist Church created the Central Nebraska Volunteers in Mission in the fall of 2006 and this was the twenty second mission trip taken.
Once we get our pictures put together, we will be willing to travel around the area and make presentations to churches or groups who would like to know more about our trip. We can be reached at 308-202-0214 or 308-202-0136.
