Anna's Story - Part 9

(Anna Smithson has volunteered to go to Kentucky with her church's mission trip.  They are at the home of Mrs. Essie Dunlap who is raising her two grandchildren.  The boys are going to work most on the roof, the girls on painting, and the plumber is going to fix up the Dunlap's bathroom.  Anna is forgetting about all of her heartaches a little at a time.)

Part 9 --

The old alarm clock plugged in at the back of church went off at 6:00 a.m. as planned.  Someone trudged back there and turned it off, or so they thought, and ten minutes later it went off again.  It was the snooze.

By that time, the teens and adults were already getting up and ready.  They could smell breakfast cooking somewhere nearby and Anna’s stomach wasn’t feeling welcome.  She never ate this early, preferred waiting until about 10:00 a.m. to have some toast, but she knew that today she would need the energy.  Welcome or not, she would eat whatever they made for them.

The ride over to Mrs. Essie Dunlap’s house took only about five minutes.  This widow was raising two grandchildren on her own in the rickety house, and it was this house that was getting the makeover.  The children and Essie were staying at a neighbor’s house, one that the mission trip from two years before had remodeled in a week.  That way they could really dig in without worrying about Mrs. Dunlap getting back into the house.   

They had specific things they were going to do.  They would paint the house inside and out, and drywall one wall in the kitchen that needed it.  They were putting on a new roof, and that’s what the boys would be working on.  They were replacing the toilet and sink as well, and that’s why one adult volunteer was a plumber.  And finally, they were going to work on the front of the house, giving it some TLC including some new landscaping. 

Buckets, brushes, rollers, and tape were quickly laid out in the places they belonged.  Mrs. Lizzi had the list of teams and tasks and she handed out a copy to everyone.  She cautioned, “There’s women’s work and men’s work, but if there is any work, it’s everyone’s work.”  By noon on the first day, there was a hum at the house.  The weather had cooperated beautifully, and it was clean but very hot.  The boys found out they would be getting up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning and getting on the roof first thing. 

That first day there was some conversation but overall the work came first.  The colors that Mrs. Lizzi had chosen were really wonderful and blended in well with the home.  It was never going to look like something from TV, but it would be clean and fresh for Mrs. Dunlap and her grandchildren.  It would give them some hope and pride in themselves and in their home.  Anna was really starting to enjoy herself.  Kentucky was going to turn out to be a terrific decision, she thought.