The View From Here

The set-up is underway for the Mountain T.O.P. semi-annual YARD SALE!
Come out to Camp Cumberland Pines this Friday (Sept 30) & Saturday (Oct 1) from 8am-3pm

4 goats, 1 sheep and some peacocks

The reminder of God's goodness and the joy of working in this place reveals itself through unexpected gifts of kind words, encouragement, letters, phone calls, emails and visits.  Two days ago, we received a letter in the mail from Mr. and Mrs. James Teliha.  It reads,

Dear Mt. Top,

We would like to thank your organization for your help at our home. In the past I had to crawl up our front steps. A group of your campers build a handrail for me at the front and side steps on June 22, 2011.

Another group painted our shed (7/14/2011) for us since I cannot climb a ladder due to my disabilities. Our shed is used to house four goats and one sheep, plus peacocks in bad weather.

My husband, Jim, age 72 has Alzheimer's and wanted his barn painted. He had built the barn alone without help or a written plan approximately ten years ago before he got sick. Your wonderful group painted the barn on 7/28/11.

Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Mr. and Mrs. James Teliha

And thank YOU to all the wonderful, willing servants of God that helped 430 families just like the Teliha's during the summer of 2011!

What is a Trader?

One of my good friends shared this video with me last weekend...  gave me something to think about...

What is a Trader?

G'bye Elsie (sniff, sniff)

This morning, we officially bid farewell to our intern, Elise. If you have never had the opportunity to met her, let me just tell you...Elise is one of those people who is always ready to lend a hand. She's the one who follows through, the one you can depend on to get the job done. She's one of those people who make work not seem like work.

This summer, Elise answered countless phone calls and made contact calls to churches coming to YSM. She supported summer staffers, helped out musically, lit candles, and drove van routes. She was the one who stayed late to wash dishes and make sure everyone was safe in bad weather.

Elise is a recent college graduate, which means, yes, she is looking for work. So for those of you who are interested in Elise's more specific skills, here are the details:

• She has an uncanny ability to stay calm in nutty situations.
  
• She was one of the only females in the office who could answer technical construction questions. And possibly build a shed with one hand tied behind her back.
• She has mad harmonica skillz.
• She drives a mini van (This fact might not be helpful in seeking a job, though how many 20-somethings do you know who drive a mini van?).
  
• She has an eye towards professionally produced videos (note: Elise's skills are professional. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the subjects in her videos).

Elise has given 4 summers in a row to Mountain T.O.P., and the ministry is so much better because of her gifts. Thanks Elise! We love you!

'Ere we goooooo!

Part of my daily tasks include updating our roster of people who are signed up for the Fall AIM weekends. While the lists can be deceiving, I like to keep my eye on the graph:

It is exciting to think what work will take place between now and November. Here are the stats as of today: we have 191 individuals signed up/reserved space from 10 different states that represent 32 churches from 7 different denominations. For 191 people, we will be putting in 3056 volunteer hours, which is a value of $56,902.72.

Right now we have 5 ongoing major home repair projects, and we are working on qualifying 6 new projects. So, as of today, we are going to help 11 families. $34,000 in Housing Preservation Grant money will be spent, along with 2 projects that will be funded by the families.

That's a grand total of $90,902.72 that we will be investing in homes and lives this fall. While that dollar amount might sound impressive, just think of all of the qualitative value that will be added to people's lives: hope, empowerment, a sense of community, renewed strength to persevere, confidence. It's hard to place a dollar amount on the value of all of that.

Where did you get that food?

I live for unexpected calls. You know, the kind that not just break up the monotony of your day*, but also leave you in awe of how God orchestrates the ordinary times.

(*On the contrary, one would not describe summer days around here as monotonous, though the atypical-ness can become "normal" in its own respect.)

So, when Glenn, the director of the Grundy County Food Bank, called this summer to tell me that he wanted to share food from Bonnaroo*, I was immediately curious. "Food, from Bonnaroo?" Festival organizers were looking for a way to reclaim the left over food that was professionally prepared and served backstage for performers. Basically, the good stuff!

(*We actually warn our churches who come around Bonnaroo time about the traffic jams and unavailability of rental vans. Talk about crazy: they're not kidding when reports go out that the city of Manchester quadruples during Bonnaroo.)

Here is a short video that focuses on Bonnaroo's sustainability projects, including the food that they donated to Grundy County Food Bank. WARNING: there is a dirty word at 0:48, but it doesn't detract from the overall effect!

Most of the food donated from Bonnaroo ended up going to the homes of individual families in Grundy County, families that the food bank works with on a regular basis. I know people who appreciate the donated jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread. Just think how extravagant a prepared dinner of food like you'd get at a nice restaurant would be, especially when you aren't expecting it? Over 40% of children in Grundy County are "food insecure", meaning at times they don't have access to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle. 6 of the 7 counties in our service area have moderately high food insecurity rates.

For as much as they throw a kink into our summer logistics, I have to applaud Bonnaroo organizers for re-purposing their resources. For some of us, it's a good meal not gone to waste, for others it's something extraordinary.

Another Day in the Life

If there are any former Field Managers reading this blog, the image to the left should look familiar: broken trailer full of wood. Bo and I had one of those "classic" field days yesterday, and I thought I would share just to let you know that we're still doing work up here.

Our day began at Baker. There was still an impressive pile of logs left over from the trees we had removed at camp this summer. I thought there was no reason to let them sit and rot when they could be converted to heat for a family this Winter, so we cut up the immovable pieces and started loading the trailer. There's nothing like wielding a chainsaw to get going in the morning. After breaking a good sweat, it was time to shovel dried, rancid paint out of a truck bed liner up and over into the dumpster (tree huggers, don't fret: that is what the EPA told us to do). After we locked up my trailer and turned off the water, Baker was left to rest for the winter.

Of course, we had to stop and say goodbye to my neighbor Elijah. And of course I had to respectively haggle with him to reduce his offer of a full meal down to a piece of cake. We sat and ate our slab of cake covered in strawberries and visited with Elijah and his momma for a minute before heading out to finish a project. Not having to stop for lunch anymore, we drove straight to Centertown to flash a porch roof. Tar on our clothes, feeling good, and the family happy, we headed back toward camp when we were done.

With the mountain in sight, the trailer tire we had worried about all day finally decided to blow out and shred itself, leaving a rubbery trail of destruction. There was only one option. We had to stop on the side of a two lane highway, take the entire wheel off and hope the one remaining tire could support the two tons of logs sitting on top of it. After stopping to rearrange the load twice, we slowly limped back to camp and unloaded.

It was one of those days that would have been miserable if we didn't have each other to share in the misery. Instead, it became a successful day full of laughter and a story we'll remember. That got me thinking that there should really be a book comprised of epic Field (and Program) stories written by past Summer Staff. I know the stories out there. It would be like a "Behind the Scenes of MTOP: Told by the People that Made it Happen" collection of tales. I sometimes forget how often we cheat insurmountable odds and even death to make ministry happen. And it's all too much of a coincidence not to be touched by the hand of God.

We often speak of the field operations being the "What" of the ministry and the programming the "Why". You can't have one without the other. I've never been a huge fan of that clear distinction, seeing as they should be interchangeable and immersed in each other. Still, trying not to get too philosophical, that is what we have to do to in order to reach a generation (myself included) that has become much more self-centered and accepting of the status-quo. If we ask "What are we doing?" or "Why are we doing that?", the reasoning is most likely to see if that thing, trip, or task is worth our time; not if there is a need to be met or if God is calling us to that task. That is why the Mountain T.O.P. model has endured and continued to change lives for 36 years. We are forced to look beyond ourselves and deep into ourselves to discover the crucial questions that will bring us closer to God. Because of this, as staff, we endure sweat, blood, flaming trucks, flat tires, trailers full of garbage and debris, and any other number of filthy, joyful tasks in order to fulfill the call placed upon us to love our neighbors and bring to light the Kingdom God here on Earth.

My job is a privilege.