By Margaret Gabriel
When Debi Moore arrived in Kentucky after applying to become a Christian Appalachian Project volunteer, she had many experiences behind her. Her work experiences and education combined to make her a fine volunteer candidate, but it was life experience that convinced her to follow up on investigating the mission work “that I said I always wanted to do,” Debi said.
Debi is unusual among CAP volunteers because she was born in Harlan, an eastern Kentucky county deep in the state’s coal mining region. Debi describes herself as a “Navy brat,” but no matter where her family was stationed, she visited her grandmother, Dorothy Smith, every summer. “She was the most kind and inspirational person I’ve ever known. She was my hero and still is,” Debi said of her grandmother who passed away in 1982.
Debi experienced culture shock every time she returned to the mountains and recalls that the people of Harlan considered her an outsider, despite the fact that she had been born in the small town. She returned to Harlan to attend high school and through those years began to feel more comfortable and accepted in the community.
After completing high school and three years at Eastern Kentucky University, Debi was dissatisfied with the direction of her life. “I was pursuing a degree in psychology, but dropped out when I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to cure anybody.” Debi joined the Army so she could travel to Germany, where she attended jump school and also trained to be a medic and a licensed practical nurse.
Debi was living in Maryland following the death of her husband when her life took a turn that eventually led her to inquire about becoming a CAP volunteer. Within a single year, Debi lost both her parents, experienced a house fire that resulted in the loss of everything she owned and a degree of personal injury.
“That changed everything in my life, but I’ve realized that it was a change for the greater good,” said Debi, who returned to her roots in eastern Kentucky in 2006 following the loss of her home.
Debi had always wanted to do mission work, and focused on that aspiration following her return to Kentucky. She had never heard of the Christian Appalachian Project or its work before she attended a Christian music festival where CAP had volunteer information.
“I don’t remember the name of the woman I talked to...but she gave me literature of CAP. I said ‘I’m not Catholic,’ but she told me that CAP was interdenominational. I took the literature home and read it and everything fell into place.”
When Debi interviewed for her position with CAP and met the managers whose programs she was interested in joining, she talked for the first time about the loss of her home and her parents. “And I cried buckets. I was mortified!” Peggy Hancock helped her work through those feelings and although Debi does not work in her program, the Family Life Abuse Shelter, they have grown close. “Peggy is a real inspiration to me,” Debi said.
During her first year with CAP, Debi put her experience as a nurse to use at the Rainbow Respite Care Center, a center-based program that provides relief to families of people with disabilities. Her second year was devoted to the elderly program and during both years, she participated in disaster relief efforts that took CAP teams to different parts of Kentucky and out of state, as well. “I think my supervisors let me go because they knew that if they didn’t, I’d just whine the whole time the teams were out,” Debi said.
Her unique skill set—including critical care nursing and a great deal of flexibility—has resulted in Debi’s third year assignment: a permanent position on CAP’s disaster relief team.
“I love it! I love the people we meet and the people I get to talk to. They say, ‘you all are so wonderful to do this,’ but I tell them that every program in CAP must collaborate for all this to happen,” Debi said from Harvey Brown Presbyterian Church, where she was staying during a relief operation following August flooding in Louisville, Ky. “It couldn’t be just me and Sherry doing this. The churches come in and everyone works together.”
Debi has taken all the Federal Emergency Management Agency certification classes, and particularly enjoys the training aspects of the program. “I’m used to being in training from my time as a nurse and I like to get other people involved.”
Like the other CAP programs with which she has been involved, Debi sees disaster relief as a true illustration of CAP’s motto to give “a hand up, not a hand out.”
