AVERY COUNTY, N.C. — Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina volunteers and their families put their hands to service over the first week in June during a localized effort that modeled the national WMU MissionFEST/Family FEST.
Ascending to Avery County in mountainous western North Carolina, 42 volunteers visited those in prison, cared for the elderly, built shelter for the poor and donated supplies for young mothers in crisis in the first of what sponsors say will be an annual MissionCAROLINA.
Local project coordinator Tiffany Liner tosses a ball to help with motor skills of assisted living resident Lisa.
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“There were lots of answered prayers,” said organizer Linda Kreiter. “Some of the people who came sacrificed financially. One lady’s mother passed away the prior week but she came and brought her young son.”
It was the first mission trip for 80-year-old Della Rouse, from Kinston, N.C., and she thought it was, “quite an experience.”
She worked with some “older people” at an assisted living facility, sharing the gospel and “being a friend.” She was impressed helping in the prison but had to beg off the hammers and saws at the Habitat for Humanity building site.
As long as her health holds, she wants to do it again.
At Avery-Mitchell Correctional Center volunteers followed up with inmates who participated last fall in “One Day with God.” On that day the inmates’ children spent the entire day in structured activities with their dads in the prison.
WMU volunteers worked with those same dads to make unique picture frames with a special message to their children, which the volunteers then mailed to the children.
Wade Huntsinger, director of missions for the Avery Baptist Association, said the volunteers accomplished a lot, including some “beautiful” landscape work and cosmetic repairs to the associational office. He appreciated the crisis center work because, “It’s one thing to say I don’t believe in abortion. It’s another thing to do something about it with compassion and love.”
Huntsinger also is a residential counselor with his wife, T.C., at a home for abused girls. He said two volunteer families became close and are planning a return vacation trip in the fall to vacation and work.
WMU state officer Dee Thomas visits with residents at an assisted living center.
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Huntsinger said local pastors did not know what to expect but “they were amazed.”
“They had never seen that large a group come in and work as hard as they did all week,” he said. “It made a huge impact on our group. They already miss them.”
Volunteers staffed the seasonal opening of a recreational area sponsored by a local non-profit; worked on two houses for Avery Habitat for Humanity; installed pavers for a walkway to a crisis pregnancy center; stocked the center’s baby and young mother supply room; did “manicures and more” at an assisted living center; and participated in the local Memorial Day parade in Newland, N.C.
Sponsoring a float in the parade and mingling among the crowd attracted participants to a family festival sponsored by the association.
“It was great,” Kreiter said. “Everybody was flexible.”
MissionCAROLINA’s primary goal was to involve whole families in missions, to help parents teach children by example about the mandate and blessing of mission service.
As a direct benefit of that goal, volunteers just wanted to help people in Avery County, a poor mountainous region which ironically is also the vacation destination of wealthy families who maintain second homes there.
The Memorial Day celebration in Newland provided a meal and activities for many poor families.
At an assisted living center one of the simple activities was rubbing the hands and feet of residents with lotion. After one lady received her massage, she said, “Thank you” — the first words some staff said they’d heard her speak.
“As always happens when we participate in a mission trip, we say, ‘We need to do this kind of thing at home,’ ” said volunteer and state WMU officer Dee Thomas. “It motivates and shows us what we can do when we join hands.”
“I am just amazed at how God puts these mission trips together — and we look forward to the next one. In the meantime, there is work to be done in our own associations.”
Norman Jameson is a contributing writer for the Religious Herald.