Date: Fri 14-Jul-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDREA

Quick Words:

c1-Trinity-youth-work-camp

Full Text:

REALESTATE

B Y A NDREA Z IMMERMANN

When the spirit moves you, there may be nothing impossible to accomplish even

if you have only five short days and virtually no experience. That is what

many of the Newtown Trinity Church Youth Group and chaperones learned while

participating in a work camp in West Virginia the week of June 26.

"It was pretty amazing. I wasn't sure how we were going to do it all - five

inexperienced people," said Newtown High School senior Kate Zimmerman, who

replaced a 40-foot porch. She was one of 500 Christian youth from around the

country and Canada who volunteered to repair and weatherize family homes for

elderly, low-income, and disabled people in West Virginia through the Misty

Mountain Work Camp. "I had no clue as to what I was doing, but we just

followed [instructions from the man in charge of our crew]."

Kingwood, located 20 miles southeast of Morgantown, W.Va., has a population of

3,243. In a handout, the work camp coordinators explain, "Many low-income

people live in tumble down houses in scattered mountain towns originally

founded by the coal companies. And with the increased technology available to

the coal industry, fewer and fewer jobs are open, leaving many people without

jobs or hope for the future... The poverty level is high and unemployment is

also a significant factor in the economic picture."

"The [kids] get to see the way another part of the world lives. Living in

Newtown and Fairfield County - we're the affluent part of the U.S. You go to

West Virginia and you see an area where people make do with what they have and

often times that's not an awful lot," said Larry Coleman, one of the

chaperones from Newtown. "They get to do God's work in as much as we're asked

to go out and be brothers to and help other people - this is one way they can

do that."

Mr Coleman, a local remodeling contractor, worked with 12 youth to completely

sheet rock two bedrooms, a dining room, and a hallway in one house. They also

taped and painted the walls. The contractor has been on all three of the work

camp programs in which Trinity has participated. He said what he gets out of

it is "the joy of working with the kids and watching them grow and do God's

work."

Youth were divided into 79 groups of five, each with one adult to work and

supervise. Twenty-eight youth were from Newtown, but the crews were organized

so no two crew members were from the same locale. It was a little scary for

some of the participants to go off that first morning with a bunch of

strangers to the house of strangers, but everyone soon relaxed and became

close friends.

"I liked it mostly because you meet a lot of new people," said Caragh Reilly

who participated in the work camp two years ago in Michigan. She said she

still writes to the crew members she met at the first camp, and intends to do

so with those she became friends with in West Virginia. "And it gives me a lot

of satisfaction to help others."

Every crew member had a task. One person would define what tools would be

needed for the day's work and collected them, another was in charge of

deciding who was to do what and when; another was in charge of calling breaks;

one led devotions during breaks at the site; one was in charge of the first

aid kit and making sure everyone had what he needed to start his day, and one

gave a progress report to the work camp staff every day.

Mary Tomasiewicz, youth director at Trinity, and her crew built a new porch on

a house that had no running water. "There was a beautiful mountain spring 10

feet from their house," she said. The homeowner, unable to work because he had

broken his foot three years ago and badly injured his shoulder this past

March, intended to move his wringer washer from the yard to the sturdy new

porch floor.

The groups usually worked from 8 am to 3:30 pm, and returned to the newly

built Preston High School where they slept. The work camp participants also

attended nightly programs focusing on the theme for the week, "A Time To

Build," which worked in the idea that Christ is the foundation for their

faith. But the purpose of the work camps was not for the youth to evangelize

to the homeowners.

"I think the hope is that somehow, the [participants] would make a connection

that their actions - i.e. building a porch or painting somebody's house - are

works of God through them," said Mrs Tomasiewicz.

Annie Lux said it was great to see how happy the people were whom they helped.

"I really had a sense of accomplishment, and we were one of the first groups

to finish our job," she said, so they went to paint someone's home the last

three days. "The two younger kids would cling to us all day long, and the

older kid would help us paint."

Annie said she has really grown from her first experience at work camp. "I've

been nicer to people," she said. "It's brought me more together as a person."

"It was really cool," said Dan Smith, who will be a senior this fall. His work

crew of five youth and one adult replaced a rotted floor in a trailer, painted

the outside, replaced the old porch, and put a thick aluminum paint on the

roof to keep the heat down in the summer. "You get to meet all these new

people from different places and you get so much done with people that you

never met before...

"It's strange because we pay all this money to go down there and work in

people's houses. You don't get money for it, you're just doing it for God," he

said. "You care for people that you don't even know...It makes you want to do

more and realize how much you have."

"If you work together," said Kate Zimmerman, "you can basically accomplish

anything."