Essentially, I was on an initial home visit (IHV) and the family of a new project told us some things that made us believe that another of our new projects may be an unsafe place to send volunteers, and also that our organization was being taken advantage of. Since then, I've struggled a lot with this issue. Wyoming county has a huge drug problem and it's quite possible that many of the families we are working for, and already have come to love, have some of those stories in their lives. Certainly this is sad, but I came to terms with the idea that poverty and drugs seem to go hand in hand a long time ago during my young life. What actually bothered me about these situations was how my organization is being seen in the community, and how we should make decisions about projects. As Christians, do we try to help everyone, even if that means we might get played by a few folks? Or, do we try to seek out those who have been doing the best they can in their lives and therefore, by normal human standards, "deserve" our help? This then caused me to ponder the same question about God's salvation and how I felt about the idea that serial killers can end up in heaven if their hearts change in time, and they can have the same eternal life as someone who has humbled himself and served his neighbors all his life. ("For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16) I'm sure that there's a whole course in seminary schools that talk about this, but I don't know...to me it all feels pretty unfair. And that's how I would feel as a homeowner applying for ASP's help who finds out that we're already helping their neighbor who is, say, a criminal...
Just something to think about.
In other news, we have IHV'd some really amazing projects for some incredible families and we are completely ready for the month of October to begin when we will have up to 12 crews each week. For our codenames this year, we decided to use "All Things West Virginia" So, for example, the state bird: Cardinal, state flower: Rhododendron, state reptile: Timbler Rattler, etc. So in the future I'll be using these names as a way to talk about our projects without using family names. Once things get rolling I'll write all about the work we're doing.
And, in even more wonderful and consistently true news, Wyoming county is probably one of the most beautiful places. Ever. I am loving these mountain roads and all the trees that are subtly starting to hint that it's almost autumn.
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| View from the roof of one of our new projects, "Mountaineer" |
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