Back to Civilization

It's nice to be home after a week in Appalachia. There were 12 of us from the church who went on this mission trip-- our average age was 56, so Daughter was the youngest by quite a bit. There were 7 men and 5 women. We stayed at a community center that hosts mission trips all summer. We had a modified double wide. There were 2 large and 1 small sleeping rooms (with a total of 14 sets of bunk beds), 4 toilets, and 3 showers. We ate breakfast and supper at the main building, and made sack lunches to take to our work sites. We had 3 work sites: the director's office and two trailers further into the mountains.
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Monday we all headed into the mountains to the trailers of two sisters. They had beautiful locations for their trailers. On one we did some repairs and painted two porches. The second site involved putting a roof on one porch and building a second porch. The women spent Monday priming those two porches. Daughter and I worked on opposite porches. She worked hard and kept at it all day. It was very hot that day. I stopped and sat down in the shade about 2:30, but Daughter kept at it. It helped that she wasn't working near me. She loved painting.
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Tuesday Daughter and I were alone painting the director's office. That did not go as well. We didn't get the paint until noon, which was frustrating, and his office was a disaster area, which was even more frustrating. We spent much of the day cleaning in there. He had lots of cupboards full of lots of forgotten junk, dating back several directors. We found 4 VCR's in them (they all ended up in the thrift shop). I managed to get a first coat on part of the office. Wednesday one of the women stayed back to work with us, and we managed to get it completed, with two coats on everything.
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Overall, Daughter did well. She did have her moments, though, and the group saw first hand some of the challenges she presents. She wet the bed two nights. Her sleeping bag did not fit in the available washing machine, so she ended up having to hang it on the porch to dry. The group was very supportive. We began hiding the food after she was caught getting into it. If she wouldn't get up for me, they would tell her it was time to get up. They were telling her about George Washington's wooden teeth, and we used the story to encourage her to brush hers (which worked a couple of times).
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They asked her to make a thank you card for the staff member who helped us, making sure we had the supplies we needed. She did a beautiful job. She hung out with a youth group that was there a couple of nights (one of the advisers was the son of some of our people). She is exhausted, and hasn't gotten up yet this morning. I think I'll just let her sleep, even though that means we will miss going to worship. She's fighting a cold, and has a cough. With camp, she's been away from home for 3 straight weeks. It's no wonder she's tired. I slept in, too. We were up by 6:00 a.m. every day, and yesterday we were up even earlier so we could be on the road by 6:00. It took just over 12 hours to get home with stops.
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It's good to be home. Very good to be home. I am off for the next two weeks. I think I will spend them working around the house and going to appointments. I'm looking forward to making some changes to our back yard. The split rail fence is already gone, and a couple in the church also did some weeding while we were gone. I'm looking forward to getting out there and getting to work. Since it's supposed to be very hot all week, I'm going to have to make the most of the cooler morning hours. Fortunately the house is air conditioned, and there's also lots of work to be done inside. I'll share more details about our travels later.