ASP was amazing!

It's hard for me to accept that this year's summer mission trip has come and gone. Charter Oak Church has long partnered with the Appalachia Service Project to serve the poor and impoverished in Appalachian America, and this summer's trip was to Mercer County, West Virginia. We took a team of 50 students and adults to the city of Bluefield where we made home repairs to 7 different houses. It was a huge success. Some of my favorite memories include:

-Ms. Myra, the lady who owned the home we repaired, telling our team that we were her angels.
-Giving the afghans that our knit and crochet team made to the people we worked for. Who knew that Jesus would use an afghan like that...
-Seeing Amber give Bree the world's biggest wedgie...seriously, it took Bree a full minute to get her undergarments re-situated...best ever!
-Having a ice cream run to McDonald's turn into an all out worship service with guitars and all right there on the porch of the restaurant. Our students never cease to amaze me.
-Talking with Courtney at the top of the slide.
-Julio...he has a way with the womens.
-Seeing Amber and Bree cruise the chapel in one of those motorized wheel chairs.
-Watching Mousegirl eat an entire box of Oreo's in like 30 minutes.
-Christian Jonzcak sleep walking...he nearly scared someone to death!
-Spending an entire day with Bree Larkin trying to make the 4 posts for our new steps perfectly square, level, and plumb...and then finding out the next day when we attached the "box of steps" to the posts that we had succeeded. I was so happy that I cried.
-Making 1,324,763,456,156,267 trips to the hardware store
-Hearing Seth Jonzcak thank Bob and Ferrold for their participation at ASP. Seth doesn't always have much to say, but when he speaks, he makes it count.
-When Zach "The Mexican" washed my feet and thanked me for being his Pastor
-When Ange Henry hit my thumb with the claw end of a hammer. I'm convinced that it hurt her worse than it hurt me.
-Watching Fish do "The Twist" to bluegrass music...oh man...you haven't lived until you see Thomas do "The Twist"! Instant classic!!!
-Having the ASP staff drive to 3 different hardware stores asking for a 5 lbs. box of Emory sparks for my project...Can anyone say, "PUNKED!"
-Finding out just how "curious" George really is.
-Getting up to pray with a group of students at 5:30am.
-Being called, "the youth group on steroids" (the person who said that had never seen a youth ministry as big as ours...it made me smile)
-At culture night Laci Jacoboski asked me to dance, and just as we walked onto the dance floor she asked, "Mark, do you have any rhythm?"...It just seemed that any logical person would reverse the order of those two questions.
-Seeing the Deuce laugh so hard at Julio that he missed the front step of the hardware store and fell flat on his face...PRICELESS!
-Working so closely with Lo-Lo, Deuce, The Mexican, Bramber, Cate, and Ange...I seriously fell in love with you dudes last week... ps - I'm so proud of your hard work and commitment to one another over those 6 days!
-Watching Tony and Alex pull it out and work through what were serious medical ailments that would have made lesser men quit. You two guys have my respect forever.
-Seeing 50 people leave the comforts of their daily lives to make a difference for Jesus.

This year's ASP trip was truly great. Grace and Peace to you.