Sunday, we arrived at our center

This morning started a little more leisurely than our 5:00AM wake ups from yesterday.  Most of us were up by 8:00, however there were a few late risers that we had to get up by 8:30.  After a good breakfast we loaded up the vehicles according to teams in prep for our drive down to the center.  After some pictures and a blessing by Fr. Le we pulled out of the hotel by around 10:00 for our 4- hour-drive.  Several groups drove together and stopped along the way for lunch.  Once we were off the main highways the terrain changed significantly to more hills and literally hundreds of "S" curves which slowed us down substantially; especially those towing the trailers.  We arrived safely around 2:15 at the Middle School in Wartburg Tn. where we'll call home for the week.




The school is about 12 yrs. old and is the best facility we've stayed at over the 5 ASP trips.  We're sleeping in 4 air conditioned classrooms, have a great cafeteria, and a fantastic gym for our evening gatherings and some opportunity to burn off some of the extra teen energy.
Each night we'll have a member from each of our 8 work teams write a paragraph about their day, the family we're working for and any interesting happenings that they would like to share.  We'll try to post pictures but we've found out that the school has filters placed on social sites which inhibit much of our abilities of what we can and can't do.  Hopefully, we'll be able to include some pictures.


One other thing, team Homorphous is really two teams wrapped up in one. One team is led by Doug Truskowsk and Dan Coughlin with five teens helping out and the other's headed by Mark Kratzer, Kelsey Heffern and Jarred Pavelski and four more enthusiastic teens. Together, they'll all be working on a house that needs a lot of work and a lot of enthusiastic hands to knock it out. But the work goes much deeper than just fixing houses, what we'll do here will cement relationships. From the kids to each other, to the people we work for, we show how much we care... and more than anything we are becoming God's hands, feet and heart here in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee.


Here are some insights from a few of our teens.


Hi this is Grace Mahoney and our team name is the Homorphous (a Harry Potter spell) yet but my team members are Kelsey, Jared, Max, Luke, Abbey and Mark.  Today was our first day at the center and tomorrow we start work on the house.  The work is going to include fixing some holes in the roof, repairing and replacing the kitchen floor and repairing the main water service.  On the way down, we saw lots of mountains and pretty landscaping.  We met another group from a church in Minnesota.  All the girls are sleeping in two classrooms and the boys are sleeping in two other classrooms.  We got settled in and had some free time to play in the gym at the school.  Each team was able to go and meet the families we are helping. This allowed us to plan our projects for the week.  It is a true privilege to help someone in need.  I love to be part of this Christian Community.




Hello from Gabby Struik of the NOX group!!  Our team left Lexington, KY this morning at 10:00, after a prayer from Fr. Le and multiple group selfies. We drove down with our work groups and jammed to some assorted music from the birthday boy, LL Cool J (aka Dominic). We got to our ASP site, Central Middle School, at 3:00. The site is beautiful; when we walk out the front of the school instead of seeing roads and houses, we have an amazing view of a mountain range in the near distance.  After setting up our belongings in the classrooms, we were able to play soccer out on the field and other sports inside the gym. Before dinner we sang some ASP songs (Wagon Wheel, Prince of Peace, etc.) with all our hearts, and then ate dinner. A few teens accompanied one adult leader and an ASP representative to our assigned work site. Afterwards, our group created a list of supplies for what we'll need in this upcoming week. We are ready to work tomorrow and are looking forward to it!!  Sincerely,  Gabby, Emma, Lucy, Dominic, Cyrus, Tim and Sheila.


Hey, it's Sam Kratzer from Team Homorphous. Today we left our hotel in Lexington and drove to Tennesse and the school we'll be living in during our stay. As soon as we arrived, everybody from all eight teams pitched in to bring in the bags.  It was very tragic to see good people live in poor homes with there families. After seeing what these houses looked like, I felt inspired to work on  them because you can see the devastation of what they're going through. The people I met today were really nice and I realized they have kids and pets that all have to live in the same conditions. It must be hard on the parents to not be able to do more for their families. I really want to help these people as much as I can with my team. I will be working with the purple squad (that's the color of our bandanas), my two leaders are Doug Truskowski, and Dan Coughlin. My teammates in my group are Adeline Nickel, Sara Ploch, Sean Coughlin and Tatum Scheibler. I'm really looking forward to working with these individuals. It is going to be an awesome Week!