Well my week in West Virginia repairing homes has come to an end. It is something that I usually get slightly apprehensive about prior to leaving. I am never sure what to expect.
When all of us walked into the center in which we would be staying for a week, I have to say, I was taken aback. We were going to be sleeping in bunk beds with mattresses that looked like they were left over from 1930, not to mention the top bunk (which I took) was 6 feet high and about 29 inches wide! Then they informed us we would have no cell service. NO CELL SERVICE…are you kidding me. That hurt the most.
The next morning we headed off to our sites to meet the family and start working on their homes. Each site and crew has two adults and usually 5 high school kids. For the entire time, the ritual is the same. Wake up at 7 am, circle up and share morning thoughts, we each have breakfast, load up the van with tons of supplies and head out to work. We would get home sometime around 5:30, shower (if lucky), circle up again, eat dinner, have some sort of evening gathering, then take a van or two of young people to the nearest town for ice cream. Get to bed by 11 (giggle till 1130 pm) and then start all over again.
As the week unfolded, you could see the transformation. The young people really get into the spirit of this trip. They go from “being in their own world” to “waking up” to the world around them. They go from eyes down when they pass you in the halls to a huge bright smile and a warm greeting. The same transformation takes place with the family we are doing the repairs for. They go from shy and somewhat reserved to open and loving. They start to wait for us to arrive each day and then start to hang out with us more and more during the day as the week progresses. The last day, the entire family was out with us, helping, laughing, and sharing stories for almost the full time we were there.
And my crew (as with all the crews) form a bond that is hard to describe! They take care of each other, they support each other, they laugh, they love and they cry. I thought my entire team was truly going to openly shed tears when we were pulling away from our family on Friday evening. As one of my young team members said “it was the most inspirational week of my life.”
Driving home on Saturday, I could not help but reflect back on the last 8 days…how lucky am I? How lucky are all 162 of us that went. To quote another advisor that went on the trip “you go to give and what really happens is you are the one that receives!” Back to the real world, back to hustle and bustle. My job now is to remember that loving feeling, that feeling of accepting everyone, the openness and make it last as long as possible. I will not have to wait another year until I have the opportunity to fill up on another dose of West Virginia.
Cindi Bigelow