Volunteer Voices

Following 3 yearly trips with our church to work at CAP, my husband and I finally made the decision to become long-term volunteers. We had planned to do some sort of service work after we retired, and the Christian Appalachian Project was a perfect place.

When I first came to CAP I expected to spend a year volunteering and figuring out my “next step.” I thought that when I left I would be leaving for somewhere – I would have a clear plan of what I wanted to do next. Then I got toward the end of my first term and realized that what I wanted to do next was continue volunteering. When that term was up, I thought I would be headed back to school, with the next two years of my life set.

When I came to Kentucky to serve as a long-term volunteer in 2009,  I wanted to work in a program that I really had no experience in whatsoever. I had spent the last four years in school studying Psychology and I needed a break from it, so I picked the Housing program. My only previous experience with construction was my two spring break trips to WorkFest at the Christian Appalachian Project, so this was a very big step for me.

I’m Christine, a long-term volunteer with the Christian Appalachian Project. I’m the Elderly Services Caseworker in Owsley County. My term of service is coming to an end, and this past year of post-graduate service (I'm a 2012 graduate of Hiram College in Ohio) has been a great experience! Serving with CAP has changed me in so many ways. Looking back, even though there have been tough times, I am overwhelmed by the amount of love and positivity involved with volunteering for CAP.

Camp AJ is, in my opinion, one of the most special places in the world. It’s not fancy; we don’t have horses or zip lines. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, there is a certain “AJ magic” that infects campers and counselors alike. Camp brings out the best in everyone. The counselors are extraordinary because they exist in this rare period of time when they don’t think about themselves for weeks on end.

I made it to Kentucky. Through a summer of office work; through 2 hour drives to Chelmsford and then back; through endless questions of what I will be doing and am I excited. Only one person asked me, “What if I hate it?” but I paid no heed. I never thought about it…until I was squashed in a car headed south.

I once heard someone state “God comes out of the darkness to call us into communion. The story is us responding or not responding.” They are words I have pondered upon a great deal. It seems that for every person such a call to communion is different. What are the feelings in our hearts and minds which lead to doing the unexpected? For me, the unexpected was coming to Christian Appalachian Project.

I volunteer at Camp Andrew Jackson (Camp AJ), which isn’t the usual spot for guys at CAP. Usually all the "manly" men choose to spend their year of service building things like houses and community centers or lugging around large containers of food to fight hunger and malnourishment and such. I considered serving in those areas, but camp was simply a better fit for me. I had just graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in History, and my next step was attending seminary.

I graduated from the University of Dayton which has a summer program called UDSAP, University of Dayton Summer Appalachian Program, and one of my biggest regrets was not participating in this summer of service, so CAP summer camp sounded great to me; although nothing and no one could have prepared me for what I experienced my six weeks in Jackson County, Kentucky. I arrived on my birthday, the next day learned what chiggers are, and the day after that I woke up with a sunburn that bubbled.

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within” (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross).