St. Mary, Oxford at 215 Summit St, Oxford, IA 52322 US - Oxford Area Parishioners Restore Houses for Poor

Earlier this month a group of eight youth and four adults returned to the hollows near the David, Ky., area of Appalachia to work on restoring housing for the poor.  Many in the group had worked in the recent floods that affected eastern Iowa. Some people asked why we were going all the way to Kentucky to help people in need when we had people in our own area that also needed help.  It came down to this: people are in need everywhere and we had made a commitment to the St. Vincent Mission a year ago to assist people in one of the poorest areas of the United States.
This was the second group  in the third season from the Oxford area to rebuild homes in Kentucky. My wife, Michelle, had taken the first group a few weeks earlier.
Over the years we had worked in some challenging situations. Nothing prepared us for the work we faced this year. At the end of a 45-five minute drive on narrow mountain roads from the mission house, we pulled around a final bend in the road and caught up with the pickup driven by the foreman, Elmer, who coordinates the work by volunteers.
We all looked around to try to identify the house we were scheduled to work on for the week.  All of us said silently or out loud, “Not that house” as we gazed on a trailer that seemed beyond repair. As we slowly got out of our vehicles and walked to the house we tried to take in the whole scene. Trash was everywhere in the yard. Three dogs were chained to their houses. The roof didn’t seem to be attached to the trailer. Windows were broken. We had a lot of work to do.
After the young couple greeted us, we moved inside. The smell of rotting food was the first thing we noticed as we entered the house. Trash was everywhere. Buckets were scattered around to catch water that leaked through the roof.  Areas of the floor were so soft we weren’t sure where to step without falling through. The base of the walls was no longer attached to the floor plates.  It was so overwhelming; we weren’t sure where to begin.
But begin we did.  First the roof was repaired and sealed under the glare of the 100-degree heat of the day. The floor was ripped up to expose rotten floor joists and floor plates that we replaced with new wood and linoleum. Windows were replaced. Wallpaper was stripped. Insulation was added to the floors and ceiling.  A new ceiling was installed.  The brick cinder block steps to the front porch were replaced with a wooden staircase.  And a fresh coat of paint was given to the entire outside of the trailer and in all but one room of the interior.
Throughout the week we became a little closer to Vernie and Berry (pronounced Burry, you know, like what grows on trees). They had fallen on hard times. He was a logger who had been out of work for a few years since a log crushed his ankle. She was recovering from surgery just after losing her job at a local shop. The week started with a sense of caution around us that was also felt by this mountain couple. As time went on, we grew to trust each other. No hidden agendas. Nothing asked in return. Just honest work to help some people in need.
On the walls of some of the rooms were pictures of Jesus. The couple was not Catholic, but had faith in Christ. They lived a simple life with family and friends close by to help each other. As the week went on, Berry helped out more and more. Sometimes he was volunteering to help one of us; sometimes he was doing a job on his own. Thursday morning when we arrived at the trailer, we were amazed to see a new addition had been started by Berry and his brother the night before. The new bedroom was for Berry’s son. They were also making plans for more renovations to the house with the help of Berry’s brother who had some carpentry skills.
Berry was planning to look for a job as a mechanic, something he loved to do and was good at it. Vernie was also excited about looking for a new job. As the week went on, Berry told me that if we hadn’t helped them, he would not have a chance to get his boy back from social services.  A social worker was to come to inspect their trailer to see if it was fit for Berry’s son to live with them. Perhaps in a small way, we brought them more than repairs to their home.  We also brought hope to their lives.
The seven young ladies and one young man from Oxford met the challenge not only of working in severe conditions to help a couple in need, but also of overcoming our prejudices toward a culture that lived a different lifestyle. 
Toward the end of the week, Sister Kathleen Weigand, OSB, the executive director of St. Vincent Mission, told us of her earlier conversation with Elmer about the last project of the season. She said there was no way a group could complete all the projects that needed to be done on the trailer and that we were setting ourselves up for disappointment. When we took our traditional group photo on the last day of a very long day of work, Berry and Vernie stood with us on their porch as we sat on their new front steps. And they cried.
In the Gospel reading today we heard, “But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ Our small group of volunteers from Oxford was blessed to have the opportunity to help a young couple in so much need. But they helped us too. They helped us see Christ in each other. We had all overcome many challenges in one short, hard week.  God is there. And God had saved the best for last.

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