Sunday evening:
Upon arrival to Fr. Beiting's home, we listened while he explained what he hoped we might accomplish for the week.

Monday:
One of our projects was to find a location to settle this camper and hook it up to an electrical supply, water supply and sewage in addition to making minor improvements. This 1960's vintage camper will become someone's home.

Monday:
A few runs to the "warehouse" for lumber and a few ever-evolving plans later - we were underway digging post holes (by hand) and sawing wood and rough-nailing the frame.

By Monday evening we had a pretty good start.

Tuesday:
Tuesday morning we're back on the stairs and this excellent photo, taken by Tom, shows a portion of the Padre's place up the hill. Here, Andy is placing a stair stringer in place while Steve measures for a board, Joe is walking down to get a measurement and Bill, yes that's Bill, holding up the already well secured post (he had to have SOMETHING to do - didn't he?).

Taking a break for lunch. As you can see, the ladies of the church did another magnificent job of keeping us well fueled up for the labor. Yum!!! Oh yeah, we enjoyed ourselves too. (Mostly at Bill's expense.)

By Tuesday evening. We were almost done.

Wednesday:
In addition to building the stairs/deck for reflection at the fountain, we had to fill in the "pit" around the fountain with sand... about 8 tons of it... and it was piled about 100 feet away up the hill. So for several hours, we shoveled and wheel-barrowed it down the hill and then pushed it down a "chute" we constructed for the task.

Here you can see Tom has just made another "deposit" for Bill to push down the hill to Steve who spread (single-handedly) about 16,000 pounds of sand. What a trooper! (We know he was just hiding from the sun.) ;-)

Wednesday:
Yipee! The deck is done! Here are two shots with the men on the unstained deck and then one with the finished product. The men are (shown left to right): Al Worchesky, Joe Chiarella, Bill Woodward, Woody McGee, Tom Judge, Steve Matusheski, Mike Ebersole and Andy Shillingsford (our construction wizard).

Wednesday:
The other major project we went to assist with was a "foundation repair" on a property within the town limits of Louisa. This property is planned to be a drug and alcohol rehab facility. It will house the volunteers for that program and will be the host location for meetings and counseling etc.

We knew the building was old... but... we were not prepared for what we would find...

Thursday:
We began, as usual with morning Mass but were then invited back to the Point of Hope community where we had volunteered in prior years - renovating trailers and the like.

We got a tour of the facility (freshly repainted) and the new "arts project trailer" that Sr. Helena is running.

Thursday:
Scenes from our visit include Sr. Bernadette and Bill, Fr. Peter (on loan from India to Fr. Beiting) and Sr. Helena. These are the real workers who are giving their lives in service to others. May God continue to bless your work!!!

We did have the opportunity to meet one or two of the residents of Point of Hope but out of respect for their privacy, we do not take pictures of them or share their stories here.

Thursday:
One of the most sad things we all recognize when we visit Appalachia is the terrible despair these people feel because they are not/can not [find] work. There is a terrible sense of being "trapped" here with no hope or opportunity. So, a vital aspect of "feed my sheep" is to create meaningful work for the residents of the community.

Sr. Helena has developed an arts program where the residents are encouraged, taught skills, and indeed paid, to produce a series of stained glass art products. (Shown at left.)

Soon, you will be hearing about how St. Theresa Church will be supporting this effort...

Thursday:
Our hearts encouraged by all the good people and works happening at Point of Hope, we headed for Adams street with some trepidation.

On arrival, we surveyed the situation. Here's the short of it: this very old building (apx 70 feet by 30 feet) was literally sagging on it's foundation. The entire foundation is a set of 12 inch x 12 inch hand hewn beams that are completely rotted out by termites, mice, ants and just water and weather over long period of time. The house is set on a series of large stone "pillars". The beams are in need of replacement - there will be no repairs possible.

We began to discuss what could be done. How do you reconstruct a building's foundation while the building is still standing on it? We began to be discouraged. "We'll never get it done!" "Do we even have the skills to do this?" "This is over our heads!" and more were the cries. Just then Bill, who had been mowing the foot high weeds and grass stopped to listen. In his quiet way he simply said "We'll do as much as we can. God brought us down here, we have to trust in him." And so we did. Exhorted and surrendered, we went to work trying to figure out how to go about it.

Thursday:
Fr. Beiting is a big water man. So, Thursday evening he took us for a pontoon boat ride on Yatesville Lake just outside of town. Always the 'tourguide', with microphone in hand, Fr. Beiting regailed us with stories of the construction of the lake (Army Corps of Engineers) and all manner of spots and events and even (gasp) sunken ships!

Friday:
With the rotten beam out of the way, we made good time reconstructing the foundation with a series of 2 x 12 beams (pressure treated of course). Here you can see Andy, our admired-by-all fearless foreman who swings a hammer with the force of a howitser but somehow manages to never hit his fingers... anyway, here is Andy warning Mike to not take his picture. Oh well, we said he was our foreman - not the boss. Nice picture Mike! :-)

You'll note there is a man UNDER the house in this photo. That man is Al who consistently amazed all of us with his stamina, judgement and willingness to do the worst grunge jobs. Here, he is under the house, (it wasn't too clean, pleasant, well lit or roomy under there), doing the very hard job of hammering huge 5 inch nails into the boards and mounting the floor hangers. You'll see Joe wasn't too dirty... he's afraid of the dirt.

Friday:
Having finished fixing the corner and setting a "pattern" for the next group of volunteers to follow, and with the day drawing to a close (and our trip) we reluctantly weatherproofed the unfinished portion. You'll note that the man helping us is the 83-year-old priest who is NEVER afraid to get dirty for the sake of the poor.

A final note about this property. We found out while working on the property (a neighbor informed us) that it was built around 1870 across the road and down by the river locks. It was orginally built as a "ho-tel" (in that Kentucky drawl) but during the depression and "hard times" it became a house of ill-repute and, as legend goes, even Jesse James stayed there one time. Later, to avoid the water damage from the proximity to the river (we think it was too late) they moved the whole house across the street to it's present location.

So, as the story goes, we went to Kentucky to help Fr. Beiting turn a house of ill-repute into a house of salvation. Not a bad couple days of work.