St. Joseph 2013 ASP Trip

Leslie County Ky - Friday July 19th

So we are wrapping up tonight!

It's the last night and we have a very busy evening getting ready to leave. All the big suitcases need to be packed and loaded in the trailer as well as all the tools. We all gassed up and ready to hit the road by 7:30 in the morning. We have a long list of chores to perform this evening to clean the center and prepare it for the group next week.

We had an evening devotional this evening and we went around the room and over 80 people or so gave a description of their "God moment" this week. There were a lot of tears and deep emotional feeling as we all expressed how wonderful it can be giving to others. You cannot come away from a week like this without being touched by the holy spirit.

So, once again thanks for keeping up with us and we look forward to seeing you all back home.

I thought I would wrap up with a bunch of pictures from the week.

God Bless

Tom Noller

Bluegrass Dancing

Here are some follow up pictures from our cultural event last night. Yes that's yours truly out on the dance floor - we had a ball.

Down By The River

Nearby the center there is a Mine Memorial dedicated to a number of miners who were killed locally in a large mine explosion. Many of us took an hour this week to visit the memorial and my group even had a picnic lunch there today. Just a short distance from the memorial is what they would call down here a "wide spot in the river". One group ate there for lunch one day and many went swimming in the river which was pretty muddy due to run off from local mines (I was told this by a local resident). The youth even found a deep spot in the river a few hundred yards down stream with a rope swing and I included a bunch of pictures of everyone having fun. There's even a few second video of my famous whale call which got the attention of local residents :-)

The Smoky Mountains

More fun to jump with 2 or 3

Fairy Lights

It was very hectic tonight and we had a tough time getting anyone to blog so I decided to post pictures from my job site. Our job was to strip damaged siding off a trailer and replace it. With a little instruction, the youth quickly learned to work independently. We also did some underpinning and putting in trim in some interior roome. Kudos to my partner, Megan Pavelski, for leading the inside work - she's getting to be a pro.

As you can see, there were several
local dogs that visited us every day so of
course we had to feed them any left over food that we had :-)

An interesting aside - I laid out a large piece if insulation and turned my back for 15 minutes. The dogs proceeded to attack the insulation and toss the pieces all over the yard.

We had left the window open in the car and a bird decided to camp out on our dashboard.

We always have a group signature of our work somewhere on a site. This support board will forever be hidden behind the siding. We have one homeowner from last year who to this day refuses to paint an interior board because he wants to remember all the kids names.

There is always a unique creature we get to see every day

The group stone we laid in our Homeowner's garden

Our gift to the homeowner. St Joseph groups alway buy our homeowners a gift at the end of the week. We bought some stepping stones, flowers and birdseed which just thrilled her.

The Center

There is an invasive plant called Kudzu that is rampant aroun this area. It covers hill sides and also engulfs trees. The resulting landscape is like a beautiful work of art.

The school where we stayed and the outdoor showers

Field behind our center

What can I say - The girls are messy!

Having Fun

So there is a contest here where you put whip cream on your wrist, hit your arm against the other arm and launch a large pile of whipped cream into the air.