[For daily ASP news from Summers County this week, please click ASP 2010 Daily Log above.  Thanks!]

Sure, this is a plug…for a good organization.  More, this is a plug for a good idea — the flesh of God’s love.  On Sunday I will join a team of eager workers in West Virginia.  We are working for Appalachia Service Project (www.asphome.org), a faith-based organization that provides structured mission opportunities in the Appalachia region of our country (West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee).  Teams from all over the U.S. volunteer for this important work every summer.  

Hundreds Of Families This Summer!

This year our team consists of 8 adults and 7 youth (representing two United Methodist churches from our community).  We are heading to Summers County, West Virginia to join teams from churches in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and Pleasantville, New York.  Personally, I’ll be glad to hang around a bunch of yankees for the week!  

This summer, a total of twenty-one teams will be working over eight consecutive weeks in Summers County.  All over Appalachia, in 26 other communities, ASP is hosting similar projects for hundreds of families!

The details of our work in Summers County will vary, but all of us – whether digging, nailing, painting, cutting, measuring, sweeping, or hauling — will be helping 18 families live in safer, warmer homes. 

Appalachia Service Project has served thousands of families for over 40 years, in places where the economy has made it especially tough to pay the bills, and even tougher to pay for house repairs.  The families we serve are not able to purchase the materials or hire the contractors to fix their homes. 

More Than Repairing A House

This is more than repairing houses.  One of our projects this week is to finish a room addition so a young family can be allowed to have their daughter live with them again.  Sure, maybe it’s just one tiny bedroom, but its an entirely new home for this young family.

Our teams include teenagers every year.  Two of my daughters are joining me this year!  Appalachia Service Project is dedicated to providing mission opportunities for youth.  Our small team will include 7 teenagers.  Very cool.  If your organization or congregation is looking for a very practical, hands-on, effective mission opportunity designed for youth, check out Appalachia Service Project (www.asphome.org).  ASP helps our church teach our youth that faith means action, that love is more than words.  ASP is one way we experience — and share — the flesh of God’s love.   

News From Summers County, WV

I hope to send you updates from the site all week long.  Maybe you recall that we were able to send news from Russia just about every day when Chris was in Ivanovo with the orphans.  Check out Ivanovo Daily Log 2010 if you haven’t read about that exciting orphan care mission trip.  If I can find an internet connection, I’ll send you the news as often as possible.

Pray for us — all of us throughout Appalachia.  Pray especially for the families who will receive (we hope) tangible evidence of God’s love.  More, please consider getting involved next summer.  We need your hands, too.

© Copyright by Jeffrey Y. Harlow, PhD (2010)