Office day!

Here's a pic from last week-- In the middle in the blue is Phloyd, and on the end is Jared. Phloyd's little sister Phil was also our bff, but seriously, these guys were awesome- and the rest of their church from Maryland! (cough cough TomTom, come back to be a Staffer-in-Training!) I'm really sad that they're gone because we all learned so much about each other and they were soo great! I'm really going to miss them :(

For a fundraiser we pie staffers in the face, and I got pied once (Tayli got 2 pies because she raised the most money, I lost by 1 cent). That was hysterical not only because, well I got pied, but because we looked like complete fools in our flockey uniforms. To you flockey noobs, it is playing floor hockey with duct tape covered fly swatters and ping pong balls.. epic.

While everyone else went on runs this afternoon, I had an office day! It was so nice to catch up on everything, because there are so many little details that you can just let get passed you but now I'm caught up on pretty much everything! I made a new system to keep myself organized and feel good about where I'm at soo that's good. Plus I got to call my mom and others today so it was really nice talking to the outside world for a bit :-) These past couple days have been great because we have 2 "floaters" and 1 helping hand, which means that people just come visit and do extra things for us that we'd like help with! Plus our program manager Sarah was here last night so that definitely helped make us look better when everything was running fairly smoothly. woop woop

Here are some pics, and a video from my roadtrip last weekend with Kyle! (I really hope this video thing works)

Monday Monday Monday Monday

It's monday. This is crazy! The volunteers got here yesterday and they seem really pumped to be here, plus most of them have been here a handful of times so that's really nice having some experienced workers without a thousand questions.

On another note, last week was AMAZING. I became so close with a bunch of the volunteers and it was a lot harder than I thought to say goodbye. One of the best and worst parts of my job is that we get a new bunch of volunteers each week- I mean the upside is the ridiculous amount of people I get to meet, but when you meet some really awesome kids it's hard to let them go! Last week some of the volunteers got us candy, we had a flockey tournament (playing hockey with fly swatters covered in duct tape and playing with ping pong balls), they donated a ton of money, and they were just amazing to be around. I gave my staff share, which is like a rollo for you Emmaus go-ers (describes my faith journey), and it was more incredible than I had ever expected. It was a little difficult giving it because I've never talked about it before other than with my staff and a handful of others, but when I finished some women from the Tullahoma, TN group prayed around me. It was the most out-of-body, amazing experiences I've ever had, I don't even know how to put it into words. I can't even describe how appreciative I am of all of those guys!

Anyhoooo today's monday, and I had hardware duty this morning.. too bad I woke up 20 minutes late! Thanks stupid watch alarm for NOT waking me up. I got everything back on time though and all of the volunteers loaded up everything they needed to, not to mention we have a floater crew and a couple helping hands so we're gonna be all set for deliveries! Plus the head construction consultant Dennis is here, not to mention my Program Manager Sarah came for the day.. so thank God everything went smoothly (ish) this morning orrrr that would have been super embarassing on my part.

K time for runs, see yaaaaaa

And if I die in Raleigh, at least I will die freeee

Sooo today's my day off! I came to Jonesville, the headquarters last night to hang with Torre and Jenna. It was so nice to get away for a little bit and not have to worry about making calls and answering questions, although I am a tad sad that I missed last nights evening gathering! But I got to the porch around 8 last night and then we drove an HOUR to see toy story in 3d... IT BLEW MY MIND! it was so awesome. Buzz Lightyear is so much cooler when he speaks spanish.. his latino hips dont lie thats forsure

Anywaysss we came back here and now are going on an adventure to Bojangles! I've never been and all I hear is good things. Spencer is gonna kill me that I'm going there without him cause hes from NC and they're all OBSESSED with it there.. apparently its wicked good fried southern food. om nom nom. I head back to the center around 3:30 today so I can be back for dinner. And tonight's culture night so we're gonna be square dancing with some people from a church, and have the south mountain bluegrass boys perform! holllaaaaaaaaa

Time to grub. Adios.

Another batch is on the way!!

So it's Sunday already. Whaaaaaaaaat!! The individual days are going by so slowly but looking back it's flying by. The new volunteers will be here in about a half hour.. they're from MD and Im super pumped cause they sounded awesome on the phone. Supposedly there's kids who are bringing a banjo, guitar, and a mandolin, and then there are good singers and a break dancer. I have such a good feeling about this week after how Friday wrapped up! The beginning of last week was tough.. as you could probably tell by my frustrated posts, but by the end of Friday night the V's were so appreciative of us and everything we did. After the "share circle" where everyone shares a God moment from the week, a Group Leader named Scott stood up and said we were the best staff he's ever had, and we got a standing ovation! That was such an incredible moment because we were convinced that they didn't like us and that they weren't having a great week. So many people came up to us and said how great we were, and then they took us to Dairy Queen :) Solid. That may or may not have been my second time there that day.. dont judge me

Anyhoo, last night Tayli Kyle and I went to the Porch in Jonesville with a couple other centers and we all hung out and watched a movie and just party-bedded all night. It was so awesome to see everyone again, and we'll get to see them all again this weekend when they come to the breaks (our state park thats AWESOME). I'm in the best mood everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


write to me!!!
Appalachia Service Project
8433 Lover's Gap Rd
Vansant, VA 24656

It's Friday...WHAT?!

This week FLEW by! Okay so maybe it didn't during the day as you can tell by some of my wenching below, but looking back it felt like 5 minutes. I think that the busier we are, the faster it flies because we straight up have no time to realize what time it is!

Today Kyle and I went on runs together, great success. The volunteers really warmed up to us and opened themselves up, and I'm so happy about the relationships weve made! Last night after our picnic with the families, 3 staffers got pied for a fundraiser we did (thank God I didn't.. that's the pic of Kyle and Becky pre-pie-in-face haha). That was hysterical and everybody got really into it, and ever since we've been so buddy buddy with the v's! I'm sad they're leaving now, but I know that next week will have even more awesome people to bring me

Tomorrow Kyle and I are going to the porch in Jonesville to hang out for the night and get the day off.. I'm excited to sleep until 10 or so, I need a few extra hours of sleep in a big bad way. It's almost dinner time and then our last evening gathering.. the share circle - it's kind of like Emmaus in that everybody shares their favorite God moment and all of the 14-year old girls cry like little babies. I'm looking forward to it :)

Volunteers have arrived.

So, the volunteers got here yesterday. Things are absolutely crazy! Nobody got here when they were supposed to and though they seem really nice, it's pretty hard to get them enthused about evening gatherings. Of course there are things that we could be doing better, but it's a little difficult to even make it through the activities if they're not willing to participate.

There is so much being thrown at us at once! We're trying to manage our assigned homes while learning about the rest of the 9 projects (I'm assigned 2 homes to manage), meanwhile trying to do our positional work, and somehow attending all of the activities we have planned every day. It's getting a tad stressful.. but my staffers are great and we're all pulling together to get through these really really hectic first days. Last nights staff meeting went until around 2:30am discussing all of the projects, and we just finished tonight's. We're all pretty much running on barely enough rest and aren't doing a good job of taking care of ourselves! I know it will get better, but I'm not gonna deny the fact that redbulls and monsters have become one of my only sources of energy.

I'm doing a hardware run tomorrow at 7am and I'm scared out of my mind because I'm going alone and there's a ton to get! Hopefully it won't take me too long because today it took us quite some time to get the materials out to the sites and that left some groups with nothing to do and many weren't happy with us.. but hey, we just finished our first day of our first week of the summer. They just can't expect perfection cause we still don't even know what we're doing!

My mind's going crazy with lots of stuff to do tomorrow and still tonight before bed sooo off I go!

ps i got the cutest care package from mom and dad today. they're awesome :)

Only one more day..

So last night in the midst of making phone calls and doing some last minute stuff, an enormous thunderstorm hit us and we lost power until 3:45am. This was pretty ridiculous considering we still have so much setting up to do and details to iron out! It was kinda hysterical trying to plan evening gatherings by flashlights last night though.. although the school was pretty creepy when it was pitch black. Good thing we salvaged 2 hours of daylight and did WORK making signs and put them up all around! Megan, a helper, came to visit us and did a lot of work for us which was super helpful.

Today we've just been setting up the center, which takes so much longer than I thought. So many signs to make, the supply room to set up, plastic to put up in order to separate sleeping quarters.. the list never ends. So.. I should get back to work! After tonight's over all hell will break loose.. the first church gets here at 1:30 tomorrow! This is mayhem. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time, but I know that we're doing God's work and everything's going to work out

Another long day fosho

So when I said that yesterday was really stressful, I had obviously had no idea what stress meant. The good news is that we signed a bunch of homes today, which is a great step towards having a functioning mission trip this summer! I really love the families that we'll be working with, they're all so appreciative and amazing. Every single person here is such a character, it's hysterical and I am eating all of their stories up. Speaking of stories... yesterday Becky and I went to do an IHV (initial home visit, i know I'm so legit with my super cool ASP lingo) on this guy's house named "Ralph". He wasn't home, so we met his cousin "Ron" who was house sitting for him, and while we were standing in the rain outside he managed to tell us that he had 3 degrees-- he was a sociologist, a chemist, and something else. Meanwhile, he was finishing his ex-wife's degree, as a "going away present". While acquiring all of these degrees, he managed to be a drummer/guitarist in a well-known band down here for 26 years, and was an aspiring Botonist so he could grow his own marijuanna.. awesome. He was definitely telling the truth.. NOT! Haha but I love that people here exaggerate like crazy because it makes everything more interesting and it definitely makes for some interesting conversation.

Anyhoo, the 5 of us rode around all day signing homes which made for 100% deliriousness the entire time and we had some sweet bonding moments. Red Bull and Monsters have become an absolute staple-- I'm going to need to learn how to shotgun Monsters to keep up with Becky because she's an absolute energy machine. (Meghan Ledan.. she reminds me a lot of your constant peppiness <3)

The reason why all of us are so stressed is because our internet is STILL not hooked up (I'm on the school's internet, which is verrrrrry limited in that we have to use proxy sites to get around all of the restrictions), our phone doesn't have an answering machine so we can't retrieve our messages, AND our center computer is locked and we don't know the password. That's a huge problem because we have so many forms and what not on there that need to be sent out but we can't reach them! I guess all of the centers have had problems with their computers working in the past few days, and hopefully it will be fixed by tomorrow. I'm relieved because I finally got in contact with all of the churches coming down last night, so that's a definite plus-- although I would really love it if I could input their info on our center's computer and just have everything organized. For now my entire life is written in note form in a steno pad.. organized chaos is my middle name. (kind of like our staff quarters..see pic)

Definitely a good day for staff bonding, which makes up for the rest of the stress! Only a few more days till the volunteers are here... CRAZY

p.s. there was the kindergarten graduation tonight so we may or may not have used their setup as an invitation to have a rap battle and dance party on the stage..which explains my typical outbreak of the sprinkler in the photo above.

LONG day!

So today was a ridiculously long day.. we woke up at 8ish, and after a quick bowl of cereal we headed out the door for some home visits. We only made it to about 3 before lunch, but because this county is so big finding each house becomes such a huge process. Lunch was awesome because we took two community contacts out to lunch at a chinese restaurant! They've been helping us find applications and the actual addresses of the homes so they appreciated the lunch, not to mention it was a really nice break from eating mcdonalds and DQ...although DQ is pretty freakin good.

We found probably 4 homes that we're definitely going to work on today, and its so nice being positive that they're going to get the help they need! It's a stressful process because some people don't own their land or trailer so it becomes a huge process making sure that a form is signed in front of a notary, the landlord and the resident..hopefully we'll have it all organized by the time the volunteers come on Sunday! ...no pressure or anything. It was really depressing when we found homes with great families that just didn't have enough need to consider it for emergency home repairs--so many families are absolutely amazing and so sweet and it just breaks your heart not being able to work for them. I know that we'll be able to find definitely qualified homes soon enough...I just want a couple homes with kids and puppies!

We got back around 6-6:30, and I finally got a hold of the two other churches that are coming down on Sunday! That was such a huge relief because they've been out of contact with us for over a week, and it's really important to go over the number of volunteers, any medical needs, all the forms and money they've handed in.. and more boring stuff. So thats just one more thing off my plate, phew

Tomorrow we get to move into our life-sized room! Right now we're staying in a kindergarten room which is wicked cramped but tomorrow we'll have a room 3x the size with a flatscreen, dvd player and computers! Not to mention our wireless internet and phone will be hooked up so we can finally function like a real staff. This whole kindergarten classroom without a working phone nonsense has been ridiculous because we can't tell anybody to call us back (we have absolutely NO service).

One of the funniest things EVER happened tonight, while we were going over the homes we visited today during a staff meeting Becky (the center director) said something really weird that we didn't know how to respond to...and Kyle (another first-year) responded after 5 seconds of silence by saying "hm." She then spit out her soda from her mouth all over him and the table, ran to the bathroom... but didn't make it--pissed her pants on the way. We're all having dying fits, Tayli had to run to the bathroom so she wouldn't pee her pants, then I literally couldn't breathe from laughing so hard, all the while we're all like drooling and looking like complete idiots because we're having uncontrollable laugh attacks...aka "craffing" (crying and laughing). Solid. Becky's going to be really really mad at me for posting this. Sorry. <3

Finished working around 9:30.. long day, but got a ton done! Hopefully all the homes will be signed tomorrow, but knowing the rate at which we get lost around here, one can only hope..

Day 1 of official work!

Hello, crazy blog world.

My journey began May 26th, and after 11 days of training and a couple days in my center, things couldn't get better! Last Sunday I found out my staff during a scavenger hunt in Jonesville, Virginia, and I couldn't be happier with who I'll be with for the next few weeks. We're all so wacky and weird in our own ways, but at the same time we know exactly when to put on the business pants and get stuff done.

We're staying at Russel Prater's Elementary School, and this is seriously the coolest school I've ever been in. There are Disney characters painted all over the walls, and the set-up is really open and inviting. There aren't actual classrooms, most rooms are just divided by bookshelves and chalkboards and such. I would have never thought that would work.. but according to our crazy center advisor Paul, it does. The 5 of us are sleeping in a head start room for kindergarten-ers, and divided it up into sleeping quarters and an office. Even though it's freakin cramped at times, it's pretty cool having a bunch of roommates and workmates so close all the time.

Today we explored the county and began working! Now that I'm used to getting up between 7-8:30am, waking up isn't so torturous anymore. Kyle and I started the day off by heading to the hardware store and introducing ourselves, and then headed over to the dump. Whoever told us that finding the dump was going to be easy was a jackass. We got completely lost up a switchback in the middle of nowhere, but it was AWESOME! Definitely one of the best times I've had getting lost-- nothing's better than driving through windy mountain roads to some good ol' Zac Brown Band! (shout-out to my fave Ethan David: the mountain with the dump on it is called Keene!) After this trip, I went on another journey up to the Breaks, which is the state park. This is seriously the coolest park I've ever been to, there are so many historical things that you can look at, not to mention the most breath-taking views you've ever seen. I don't know how you can look at the view and not believe in God, the view was way too gorgeous to doubt that there's something bigger than us out there.

I never thought driving around would make me so exhausted..but after some phone calls and sign-making after that second trip, I'm just about ready to pass out. Great success.

p.s. my address is:
Laura Kelly
Russell Prater Elementary
St. Route 83
Vansant, VA 24656