Epiphany UMC

Our team is studying Acts 2 and 4 for our breakfast devotion today. We’re in church clothes and excited for Sunday School this morning!

Krista Williams from the Greater Greenbrier Long Term Recovery Committee came to tell us about the flood and recovery efforts, the ministries we will be a part of this week, the school we are staying in, and the communities we will be serving. It gave us a greater understanding of the people and needs here in Rainelle and Greenbrier County. We are excited to get to work tomorrow.

Wow! What a day. Today some of the group served their time at the Wish Center located in White Sulfur Springs. Just a short description of who they are and what they do. The Wish Center is a place for the local teens to come and have a place they can call home. These teens that come through the Wish Center come from situations that are related to drug abuse and alcoholism. These two things are a pretty big issue all over West Virginia, so it’s nice to have a place where teens can come in and be in community with one another.

So today, the group from Epiphany UMC out of Cincinnati split up in groups and the group that was at the Wish Center today helped with many different projects ranging from scraping paint off the walls, re-painting the walls, fixing computers and handing out flyers for an ice cream social event that the Wish Center is putting on for the community around White Sulfur Springs. It was cool to see how much had been done in only one day of service. Tomorrow, all of us are heading back to the Wish Center to help set up for the social event. 

Today, part of our team was able to start scraping rust and old paint off the fire escapes at the Rainelle Christian Academy building. We were able to get primer on one side before the rain washed us out! They say it’s called “RAINelle” for a reason!

Our dinner was interrupted last night with a visit from a hummingbird. Apparently the trauma if being removed from the building wasn't enough, because he returned again at the end of our debrief meeting. He was quite the humorous ending to our night.

Several of us spent part of our day canvassing neighborhoods and inviting people to join us at the WISH Center's hot dog and ice cream social tonight. Many people were afraid to open their doors for strangers, but others welcomed conversation and even came to the event.

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Last night, our team was able to take part in the ice cream social event that the Wish center was putting on. We were able to meet some people that lived in White Sulphur Springs and hear their stories of the 2016 flood that devastated the southern half of West Virginia.

We got to do some landscaping today! There was a lot of weeding that needed to be done. We also got to plant some sunflowers and decorate classrooms for the upcoming school year. It was a huge blessing to see the progress we made!

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We (almost) finished painting the fire escapes at Rainelle Christian Academy. The only hindrance was running out of paint after the only stores in town we're closed. The anti-rust, oil based paint was super sticky and messy, but the final product looks great!

Today our team was able to help Mayor Andy with a very important task for the town: Cleaning the Caboose! Rainelle has this historical train caboose that sits right next to city hall and our participants had it looking brand new by the end of the day. 

Today our team was able to visit the third highest bridge in the United States after a long day of rafting. 

We had so much fun whitewater rafting with ACE Adventures! It was a great way to end our trip.