Old Union Mission Trip 2025: Canton, NC, Friday 8-15

 Let me first say welcome back readers, sorry I did not get to post the Friday happenings until now.  The laptop we were using had to decide it needed updating that evening, and with the sometimes poor wi-fi signal it took a long time.  By the time it was done I was too sleepy not go straight to bed, so we might get an early start on Saturday back home.

Our last work day (is it Friday already?!) here started off foggy, the old Paper Mill across from Canton Presbyterian church was hard to see.  Because of improved conditions at the Mill Springs site it was finally open.  So about half of us headed there at 6:30 AM.   On the way to our work site in Hendersonville (where I was) the fog broke up and was then only in the river valleys.  We started here at 8 AM.  It remained sunny and comfortable through early afternoon.  Praise the Lord, because we had a lot of work to finish up at the two houses on the street.  For the first house, after 4 days of working on installing baseboard trim and then caulking around that and the windows I was ready for something new.  So I volunteered to help Sally put a first or second coat of paint on the doors, single and bi-fold type.  But first Alex from HfH helped us move the doors and canvas floor covering into another room so that the prior painting room could be caulked more easily.  The painting was easy but tedious work.  Other members of our team, Lorene and Cassandra and Mary Rae, also sanded the drywall and did more spackling to further smooth out the bumps and fill in the nailholes.  Brett and intern Jennifer, both from HfH, joined in the fun.  Popping in to check up on us were Linda, and Amy with her baby girl Lulu.

Sally's date and nut cookies were enjoyed very much during this trip, and like the past several days we had for lunch deli sandwiches and some kind of salad.  Today it was potato salad.  Maybe pizza is only on Mondays?  At the second house on this street, which is about a day ahead of schedule of the first, a pro paint crew was working, so we did not have much to do there. We left Hendersonville around 3 PM, and it started to rain and thunder soon after we arrived back at Canton.  We were quick to take our showers since the crew from Mill Springs had yet to arrive.

And now l will let Peter talk about the work that his crew at the house in Mill Springs performed.  I know they had to work more out in the hot sun than we did since they did not have have a roof over their heads.

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Thanks for the introduction, Clark.  This is Peter, to tell you what happened on Friday at Mill Spring.  We arrived at 7:30 in the morning, and the ground was indeed muddy from the rain all week.  But it was dry enough to get to work.  The pre-assembled walls were loaded on a trailer beside the concrete slab foundation.  It's a good thing there were about a dozen of us, because the exterior walls were very heavy.  It was exciting to see how quickly we were able to set them in place and secure them.  The weather in the morning was cool and cloudy, but after lunch the sun came out and it got hot very quickly.  After putting up the interior walls, we started to put on the second plate, which consists of 2 X 4's to secure the different wall pieces together.  Unfortunately, the threat of a thunderstorm forced us to stop before we had this task completed.  But this give me time to treat our crew to ice cream at a nearby shop on our way home.

And now, back to you, Clark!

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As per tradition we had dinner out at one of the local establishments, Southern Porch, a short walk/drive from the Canton church.  In order to accomodate a party of our size we had to sit in the bar area, which was rather noisy.  I sat at a table with Dave and Mary Rae.  Since they are both passionate about mission work at their respective churches they had a lively discussion, including about the fate of our foreign mission coworkers.  I won't try to get into that here; let's just say that they had a lot to say about the matter.  For my menu selection I had fried fish, fried okra, and homemade potato chips (don't tell my Dr!)  Dave offered me his side dish of carrot and celery sticks.  I gratefully took half but then insisted that he eat the rest.   Can't have too many veggies after all.  Mary Rae had the soup.

Once back at the church our evening devotion was led by Pastor Bob.  First he had us sit in a circle inside the "Joy Room."  Sorry, no winking.  Then he read the very familiar passage from Luke 15: 11-32, the Prodigal Son.  How did we identify with the characters in the story?  Have we squandered away our time/talents?  Does being an older or younger sibling affect your perspective on the story?

Then we broke up and started to clean and organize so that we might get an early start in the morning.  I now have to praise the Holy Spirit for leading Peter in the right direction in choosing this particular trip for us, and for inspiring our team to come together, and for helping me to write these words.  We come from diverse backgrounds and skill levels, but we all made it work beautifully.  Once again I think that we exceeded what was expected of us.  And thank God that we made it safely through to the end.  When working with saws and nailguns and hammers and the heat, not to mention all those hoses and wires laying all over the floor, we certainly needed your prayers, so thanks again. And keep praying for all the people I mentioned this week, as well as any others you can think of yourself.  Today I must say that Jesus would be so proud of us!!  Hopefully I have inspired some of you to join us next year.  Signing off for the last time this year, this has been Clark the trip journalist.