‘A Calling Right Here’

Northern Rockbridge Churches Helping Neighbors In Need

By Roberta Anderson

Mission work by Christian churches is often thought of as taking place overseas, or even in other parts of the country following catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina.

Mission Next Door, the effort of six local northern Rockbridge churches, is directed towards helping people a little closer to home. During the past two years, teams of volunteers from the churches involved have undertaken home repair projects for their neighbors who may be physically or financially unable to complete them on their own. Mission Next Door volunteers have built wheelchair ramps, put new siding on houses, repaired porches, shingled new roofs and updated old bathrooms.

The volunteers work in teams made up of members of New Providence, Mt. Carmel, Bethesda, Fairfield and Timber Ridge Presbyterian churches and Asbury United Methodist Church. The repairs have been primarily financed by the individual churches with money collected at fund raising events such as chicken barbecues and silent auctions or sales of homemade apple butter. There have also been donations of time and materials from local tradesmen, including plumbers and electricians, and from businesses such as Spencer’s Home Center and the Rockbridge Farmers Coop. This year, Mission Next Door received a $2,000 community grant from Washington and Lee University as well.

Now the participating churches are planning a major fund raising bazaar at New Providence Church this Saturday, Sept. 26, to ensure that their work can continue into the future. “We make no bones about it,” said Sandy McLaughlin, unofficial business manager for Mission Next Door and member of New Providence. “This is a Christian mission effort, and we have found that so many people have an innate sense of mission and want to participate. Being a Christian mission, there are actually very few basic directives that we have to guide us. But this is one of them — to help your neighbor. “We want it to be made perfectly clear that our goal is to reach across to our neighbors; we’re not reaching down. We’re trying to share something with our neighbors. It’s the best way that we know of to express our faith.”

Roberta Fauber, also a member of New Providence, gives the church’s former minister, the Rev. Chris Crotwell, much of the credit for providing the initial inspiration for the project. Crotwell’s interest in mission work first led volunteers from the church to assist with several projects in West Virginia. Then when Hurricane Katrina stuck Mississippi, Crotwell’s home state, volunteers participated in four mission trips to the devastated area in Hattiesburg, Miss. The church supported the effort not only with volunteers — as many as 30 people went on one excursion, including members of the Bethesda and Mt. Carmel churches — but financially as well, paying for all the building materials and other supplies that they took with them. It was during the 15-hour drive home from the third trip to Mississippi that Fauber said the idea of focusing on needs closer to home really began to take hold. “It occurred to us that there were probably people right here at home in Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County that needed our help as well as financial assistance,” she said.. “We realized we had a calling right here in our local area.” Wanting to help isn’t always enough, however. “There first has to be someone who not only has a genuine need but is agreeable to accepting the help,” Fauber noted.

As fate would have it, there was a fellow parishioner with that kind of need living less than a mile from New Providence. The roof on the home was rusted, the siding was peeling away and the heating bills in the winter for the drafty house left little money for repairs. Members from New Providence joined forces with volunteers from the other participating churches and completed their first project — an extensive exterior renovation of a home right here in Rockbridge. The volunteers put in new insulation, added siding and a new roof, replaced windows and installed a moisture barrier in the basement.

Fortunately, with all the churches participating, there was always one volunteer on site with building experience who acted as the contractor, an essential element according to McLaughlin. “There are a lot of people who are willing and may have done a bit of home repair, but you really need someone on site who can make sure things are done right,” he emphasized.

“It was a blitz renovation, completed in less than four days and the change in the house was really Cinderella-like,” Fauber recalled. “There was a marriage of the owner allowing us to help her and an enormous number of people who wanted to contribute. It sparked a real ‘we can do this attitude’ among our members.” Ruth Ward, who lives on Elm Avenue in Buena Vista, is grateful for this “can-do” spirit. Ward is a widow who found herself unable to pay for the much-needed repairs to the roof of her house. In fact, she said she was in danger of losing her home after taking out a home improvement loan at 18 percent interest following the death of her husband.

Mission Next Door found out about Ward’s situation through Habitat for Humanity. Habitat has a new program, Rehabitat, that involves making home repairs to existing homes. “Habitat investigated Ruth’s situation and found out about the loan,” McLaughlin recalled. “It was like the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.” Fortunately, Fauber’s husband, Roy Fauber also happens to be chairman of the board of Habitat. Working with Habitat officials, he was able to help Ward refinance her loan. Mission Next Door then determined that Ward’s needs also fit the criteria for their mission.

“It was unbelievable; I thought I was dreaming,” Ward recalled about the morning that 14 volunteers showed up to put a new roof on her house. In less than three days, the repairs were complete. “When it rains now, I don’t have to run around with my pans to see where it's leaking. It used to be like someone had turned the water spigot on inside the house,” she said. “Their work comes from the heart.”

Homeowners who are able can choose to contribute money to Mission Next Door to assist in paying for materials. “Ruth felt she had to contribute so she gave us a beautiful box her husband had made out of matchsticks and a miniature filigreed stove for our silent auction at our upcoming fundraising bazaar,” Fauber said.

“We’re all very connected,” Ward echoed.

The churches involved in Mission Next Door have four different work teams, each with about seven or eight members. The concept of working in teams was borrowed from Habitat for Humanity where a group of people work together and develop a camaraderie and familiarity with one another, McLaughlin said. The teams also frequently bring different age groups together, allowing young people who may never have used a saw or hammer or other building tools to learn from those who have.

When multiple teams work together, the atmosphere is like an old-fashioned barn-raising, McLaughlin said. The team concept also allows the mission effort to match talents with needs. For example, one of the teams comprised of members of Fairfield Presbyterian acts as a service team and frequently fixes meals for the other workers.

Mission Next Door has also partnered with organizations such as Total Action Against Poverty and Habitat in order to better identify where the needs are in the community. TAP has certain minimum guidelines that must be met before it will fund a project. For example, TAP will not insulate a home if there is a leaky roof that would only ruin the insulation. Mission Next Door can provide that roof.

“We want to help people that need work done and can’t do it for themselves,” McLaughlin explained. “But at the same time, we have to be careful to undertake project that are appropriate and not overextend our workers. People do need a break to regenerate.”

This year, Mission Next Door has begun to reach out to other churches in the county, either to help them get started with their own programs or even provide some seed money. “However it all comes together really doesn’t matter, we just want to be part of the same mission and see the work get done and help our neighbors,” McLaughlin said.

Anyone in need of assistance or knows of someone who needs help or who wants to support Mission Next Door can call New Providence Presbyterian Church at 348-5881.

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